Capillary Action, And Other Ways to Defy Gravity
by paintthesilence
Summary: Welcome to the latest manuscript of mildly popular paperback adventure novelist Riku Walker. Because every adventure writer's got one good romance in him, right? Rated M for language, later content.
1. In The Beginning

**AN: **Welcome to my newest creation. :) Before we start the ride, let me remind you that this ride does include bumps, sudden turns, and drops of 50 feet or more. Please stow all personal items in the pouch on the back of the seat in front of you, keep your seatbelts fastened tightly, and keep all arms and legs inside the vehicle until the ride has come to a complete stop. Without any further ado, we hope you enjoy your time here, and we hope to see you on many a return visit to the latest manuscript of the mildly popular paperback adventure novelist, Riku Walker.

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Lately I've been wondering where things went wrong. No, that's a lie. I know exactly where they went wrong – The Happy Duke Café on the corner of 5th and Waldorf. Or maybe, now that I think about it, maybe it wasn't at the Happy Duke that things actually went wrong. Maybe it was at the shop – Kairi's shop – just a few blocks north of there on 5th. Or _maybe_ it was at the bar, Gaston's, where the two of them actually met. Outside the bar. In the doorway. Christ, I don't even know anymore.

What I do know is this, and God knows it took me long enough to figure it out: I am in love with Sora Panucci. I am in love with my best friend's boyfriend. And I guess to figure out where it all went wrong, I'd have to know what "it all" actually is that went wrong, and why it's so wrong in the first place.

Stay with me, now. Please. I'm practically begging you. I've written every other story I can muster and now this is all I've got left. Compared to my earlier work, it might seem a little, well, different, and I can guarantee that my editor will be mightily confused. But every good adventure writer's got one decent romance in him, right? I mean… right? At this point, I don't really have a choice. I've already started typing and now I know I can't quit until I know the end.

Consider this my first real work of nonfiction. Let me take you back.

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Outside of the Happy Duke Café, it's cloudy with a high of 48 and a low of 39. Inside the Happy Duke Café, it's sunny with a high of 72 and a low of… also 72. It's last year, and it's fucking freezing outside.

My laptop and I take the table by the radiator every day at 9:30 in the morning, and leave together anytime from noon to 8:00 PM when the Duke closes its doors for the night. On a good day, I write short stories, or parts of short stories, or characters for short stories, or outlines for short stories I'll write another day. On days like this one, I write fragments of sentences or words that come to mind or nothing at all.

When I first moved into the house – Zexion's, of course – I could write every day. I remembered every detail of every breath I took in every country I hitch-hiked through. Every night spent curled up between drunken strangers, every hit of every drug I half-heartedly agreed to try, every color that danced across my brain had poured eagerly from my fingers to my keyboard, into convoluted poetry and desperately factual fiction. Adventure stories, for the most part, based vaguely on pieced-together memories of various experiences I'd added to my repertoire. After six months of living solely in the previous six years of my life, I sat down to write one morning to find my travels completely exhausted, and I made an executive decision to clean up and step outside for a change before I drove myself any crazier than I'd come to be already.

In any case, on this particular morning, gears are finally turning in my head. Tetris pieces are falling from the sky and the most intricate lock is slowly, methodically clicking into place. I bite my pen and stare at my empty coffee cup, waiting for the last clink of metal, the last puzzle piece, and finally the mystery's solved with one final whoosh as the iron door opens, the heavy switch flips, the light turns on and God dammit, I finally know what to write.

"Can I get you a refill on that coffee?"

Blank, don't blink, don't listen, don't lose that sentence-

"Sir?"

I can't fucking believe it. I swallow and look up at the coffee boy, then down at my empty cup. The sentence is gone and my Word document is still blank and my totally unnecessary pen is all chewed up on the end.

"Sure," I manage. "Sorry."

The coffee boy smiles, pushes up his sleeves and reaches for my cup. I watch him walk away on steady feet and sturdy legs and wonder if I've ever known anyone who walked quite that way.

It's starting to rain outside and I hardly even notice when the coffee boy shows up again.

"Black, right?"

I nod and accept the new cup, taking a slow, disappointed sip and wondering why he's lingering. I can see him still in the corner of my eye, and I'm still a little peeved about that sentence. Once they're lost, they never seem to come back around.

"So… are you a writer?"

_Shit._ I look up. The coffee boy looks interested, hands dug deep into the pockets of his jeans.

"Um," I say eventually. "Yeah. Yes."

_I'm not a published writer, and I have no income. But sure. I'm a writer. Okay._

"It's just, you come here a lot, and you're always writing, so I figured… you know. It must be your job, because, you know, since you're always here, you can't have a different job. Somewhere else, that is."

I nod again. "Yeah, I don't have a job anywhere else."

"Unless you telecommute, I guess," he continues, and now he's taking his hands out of his pockets to straighten out his sweater. "Or I guess if you worked nights somewhere… you could still be here in the day."

"I don't," I say curtly. I set my coffee cup down. "I just write."

The coffee boy nods. He's kind of sticking his jaw out and it reminds me more of a llama than anything else.

"I wish I could do that," he says after a moment. "I would love that, you know? Just writing, or whatever. But it's like, you must be pretty good, right? Because it's like, how are you gonna pay the bills, right, that's why _I'm_ here every day," he says, and he laughs. His sleeves slip down again around his hands – big, green, heavy sweater sleeves.

I give him a grim smile and nod again, unable to comment on bills or rent. Zexion pays for those, of course. Zexion pays for everything. _It pays to have smart friends_, I'm thinking, _I mean, literally._ Before I know it, the coffee boy's suddenly reaching out his hand. I wonder for a moment what to do.

"I'm Sora," he says, and as I shake his hand, he sits down on the other side of the table.

"Riku," I say. "Walker."

"It's good to finally meet you," Sora says, grinning. "I mean, having known you for over a year as Radiator Guy."

This just about kills me. I may not have a conventional job right _now_, per se, but I've certainly worked retail before, and I never thought I'd be one of those people. You know the ones, or at least, if you've ever worked in a restaurant, a coffee shop, a grocery store, practically _anywhere_, you've got to know at least one of them. You know, Homeless Guy, or 3-Pounds-Smoked-Turkey-Sliced-Extra-Extra-Thin Guy. Maybe for you it was Hat Lady, or Triple-Grande-Breve-Extra-Caramel-Caramel-Macchiato Woman. Anyone habitual and predictable enough in their behavior who you see _every damn day_, they become [Insert Behavior or Service Desired Here] Guy or Lady or Chick or Dude. I groan internally. How could I have become one of these people? Better yet, how had I become _Radiator Guy_?!

"So what do you write about?"

I take another long sip, sigh, and look at my blank computer screen. "Today, nothing. In general though, I write… short stories."

"Oh yeah? That's cool, short stories. So I guess you'd publish like… a collection of them, or something?"

"That's the hope, yeah. At some point, that would be a… a good thing to do."

Now he's laughing, and he turns to check on his other tables. Spotting an empty table that needs cleaning, he makes a face at me (God, how long has it been since someone "made a face" at me?) and stands.

"Hey, um, me and some friends-" (_Some friends and I_, I think automatically) "-were gonna catch some music tonight at um, at Gaston's, I dunno if you know where that is, it's on like, 44th or so, but um, well, wait, you're over 21, right?"

I raise my eyebrows. "Are you serious?"

"Hey, you never know, I dunno, I mean, you look… um, you know."

"I'm 26."

He laughs a little, pushing in the chair he'd been sitting in.

"Alright, good. Um, but yeah, we were gonna go, and um. Well. You should come with. If you want," he adds hastily, pushing chocolate hair back from his face.

This intrigues me, despite the coffee boy's lack of grammatical tact. He's definitely cute, and it's been a while since I last- but he's probably not gay. I mean, what are the chances? On the other hand, the sweater. Plus, he came over to talk to me, didn't he?

"What time?"

"Well, I'm off at 8, and I was thinking I would just head over from here."

I nod, considering my options. I certainly don't have any other plans. And anyway, the only other person I ever really hang out with is-

_Ring._

-calling me _right now_.

"I'll come back," Sora says, and he walks away.

I attempt an apologetic look before pulling my cell phone from my jacket pocket and flipping it open.

"Hey, Kairi."

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Let's take a quick breather, now. I can't really just throw Kairi at you without any background, can I? I mean, she's a major player here. She's really my best friend, outside of the guys I live with, and the guys I live with are, well, they're my friends, but they're also… my roommates. Plus, they exist in a whole different world than I do. Business and large sums of money – anyway. Kairi. My best friend.

Actually, this is about to start sounding really pretentious, but I met Kairi at a bookstore. Look, I'm a writer, I spend a lot of time in bookstores. In any case, so I'm in the bookstore, right? And I'm in the Italian section, because I'm looking for a good, simple novel to read to keep up my understanding of the language. I was halfway decent with it when I was in Italy, but ever since I left there, it's been slowly dwindling. Anyway. I'm in the Italian section and I notice something trendy lurking almost directly behind me. I shuffle over a little bit to the right, but she kind of shuffles over too, and finally I'm forced to either look at her or wait for my brain to explode with frustration.

"Am I in your way?" I finally ask, turning to face her, and Jesus Christ, she's even trendier than I thought. Cute, though – shoulder length red hair, bright blue eyes, and a black and white checkered scarf. She's actually wearing a pea coat, also black, and dark blue jeans tucked into those kind of slouchy looking brown boots.

She must think I'm looking her up and down because I'm interested. Whatever, right? As long as she learns to stand a little further away from strangers, I'm good.

"I, um, I actually don't know," she says, giving me one of those exaggerated, apologetic "Oh no!" faces.

"Um," I say.

"I'm looking for one of those, like, Teach Yourself Italian books. You know what I mean? Like, an instructional book. The sign said Italian, so…"

"These are all literature," I reply. Is she serious? But she seems nice enough. "Here, I'll show you where those kinds of books are. I used to read them all the time."

She looks desperately relieved. I'm starting to think this bookstore ought to start paying me, considering how often I find myself grabbing things off of shelves for short people and directing fashionable young women to the Teach Yourself Italian books. Arriving at the correct section, I gesture to the shelf full of the books she needs.

"Ta-daa."

"Oh my God, seriously, thank you so much," she… says? She… gushes, yes, that's the word I'm looking for. She's seriously overjoyed. "It would have taken me for _ever_ to find these on my own!"

I consider walking away, but remember a recent conversation with one of my roommates, Demyx, in which he told me I really need to get out there and make some friends.

"Are you… learning Italian?" I ask half-heartedly. She looks up, her expression almost embarrassed.

"Well," she says, "I'd _like_ to be. I mean, I guess it's sort of a nerdy hobby of mine, I like to learn languages. I'm not really very good at any of them, though. But, you know, I've just always wanted to go to Italy."

"Ah," I say. _Come on, Riku_. "I, uh, I actually lived in Italy for about a year, um, a little… while ago."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

She seems to be waiting for me to continue, but I'm really not very good at this.

"I, uh, I spent some time in Europe. I was 22 when I kind of… settled. In Italy."

"Were you on some kind of exchange, or…?"

I shake my head. "No, I, uh, I dropped out of college when I was 19 and kind of headed off, you know, to see the world, that kind of thing. Mostly I just ended up seeing Europe, making bad choices, traveling around."

"Ohhh," she says, nodding knowingly. "Well, I hear the food is great."

I can't help but laugh at this one, and she laughs too. "Yeah," I say eventually, "There's only one place here that's got real Italian food."

"Really? Where are you thinking of? Maybe I've been there," she says mischievously, straightening up with a book in her hand.

"It's called L'Ora di Mezzanotte," I reply. "It's a nice place, and they serve drinks and dessert after midnight, they stay open till 3."

"Huh," she says, biting her lip. "I've never heard of it."

_Okay_. _Time to shine. Make some friends, Riku._

"Are you free tonight? I could take you," I manage, and she blushes a little.

"Oh my god, I'm actually busy tonight, but, um, I mean, and I'm seeing someone right now, but what about… Friday?"

"Sure," I say, shocked that she's actually willing to go. "I'm, I mean, believe me, I wasn't trying to, um, to pick you up, or anything. I mean, you're… not my type, if you catch my drift."

God, I've always hated when people use that expression, and here I am using it. I'm hoping she understands, and she nods, so I figure she does.

"Great! Well, here, can I, um, can I give you my number?" she says, and seconds later my phone is requesting a name to save it as.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch your name," I say. "I'm Riku, Riku Walker."

"Riku," she repeats, transferring her book to her left hand and reaching out her right to shake. "I'm Kairi Quinn."

The rest is irrelevant. You know the drill, the awkward goodbye and the walking away despite not knowing where you're going, and then realizing where you want to go is actually in the other direction, so you go back and you have to walk past them again. But I digress. It's a good thing that Kairi actually got my number out of me before I scampered away, or else I might have just lost my nerve and never called her. As it were, she called me that Wednesday, all bright and peppy and colorful even over the phone, and she asked if I wanted to make it a double date – her and her boyfriend, me and mine. Unfortunately, I had no boyfriend, and she said she actually knew someone who she was just _positive_ I would like. The best part was, the words "boyfriend" or "he" were never actually mentioned in regard to me, so when I showed up for the blind double date, I was standing in front of Kairi, her muscular, Germanic-looking boyfriend (more on him later), and a tiny, fierce-looking blonde woman. Yeah, I know, right? Kairi set me up with a woman, which was actually really awkward when it came time for me to take that woman home.

Namine, that's her name, was great company throughout dinner, and it was wonderful to get to know Kairi a little better. All things considered, it was one of the only times in my life I've felt truly grown up. All of us were dressed up, and we ordered nice wine, and I felt about age 35.

But before I know it, there I am, standing on the front steps of a gorgeous old brownstone, waiting for Namine to stop doing that "I'm going to stand here ostensibly looking for my keys until you kiss me" thing.

"Look," I say, "I had a really great time tonight. And it was wonderful meeting you, but, um…"

Here she sighs, and she finally pulls her keys out of her purse. "There's always a but, isn't there?" she says gloomily.

"Oh no, no it's really, it's nothing about you," I say hurriedly. "But I thought I'd made it clear to Kairi on the phone, I'm… gay."

She nods slowly, looking me up and down. "You _are_ well dressed. And you did tell me my building was gorgeous."

"And I'm talking to your face, not your cleavage," I add.

"Oh, you _are_, aren't you?"

I smile, shaking my head. She really is a great girl, I maintain that to this day. Some guy will be fucking lucky to have her.

"Goodnight, Namine," I say, and I give her a kiss on the cheek.

Walking down the steps, I hear a "Goodnight" from behind me, and I give her one last wave before climbing into a cab and heading home.

After that night, the rest is history. Kairi called me up the next day to apologize profusely for setting me up with a girl – she'd called Namine that morning – and to thank me for introducing her to the best Italian food she'd ever encountered. We made plans to meet up the following week for gelato, and after that, we just seemed to keep hanging out. Before I knew it, we'd become almost inseparable, and when the big, blond jerk broke her heart, who was there to comfort her? You got it, Riku Walker.

Anyway, what I didn't know at the time about Kairi was that she runs her own shop – a soap store, or rather, a store for things that smell good. It's a cute, modern little place in the same trendy neighborhood as the Happy Duke Café, and if it weren't for her store, I would probably never have found the Happy Duke in the first place, and thus, would never have met Sora Panucci. But this is all beside the point. I set out to introduce you to Kairi, and here I am telling you about her shop, her loser ex, her friend Namine, Italian food… Well, forget it. I can edit the extra out later, can't I? Streamline my thoughts, you know, the usual editing crap.

But I think here's where I'll stop for tonight. I can hear Axel and Demyx downstairs, and it sounds (and smells) like they're cooking something fantastic. Signing off – this has been your daily dose of the convoluted crapshoot otherwise known as the life and times of me, myself, I, yours truly, the one and only - Riku Walker.

Possible titles:  
Riku Walker's 26th Year of Shit-tacular Life  
Riku In The City (ajfshskjghskjghskg.)  
Riku Is Self-Centered And Is Writing A Manuscript About Himself  
The Coffee Boy In The Green Sweater, or, I'm In Love With An Italian  
Axel is making lasagna, come down if you wanna eat it, lol I'm in ur manuscript, laffin at ur titlez  
(for future notes: that was Demyx. Fuck this! I'll title it tomorrow.)

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**AN: **Thanks for riding with us today, we hope you enjoyed the ride. As your car comes to a complete stop, please unfasten your seatbelts and exit to your left. On your way out, feel free to fill out a comment card and let us know what you're thinking. We hope to see you again soon.


	2. Rocket Science

Let's see, now. Where did I leave off? Right, right, Kairi was calling. Well, let's put this in perspective. I met Kairi in… mid-September, the year before last. And the day I finally "officially" met Sora was over a year later – the following December. We'll work from there, yes? Now, where were we? Right, so I'm in the Happy Duke, and Sora's just introduced himself, and my infernal cell phone naturally starts to ring right in the middle of everything.

"Hey, Kairi."

"Riku!"

_Uh… yes?_ I raise my eyebrows. "Yeah, that's me."

"Sorry," she says, flustered. "I didn't expect you to pick up, I was just gonna leave you a voicemail."

I blink, watching Sora extract a rag from his back pocket to clean a table across the room. "Well, I can hang up and you can call back and leave a message, if you'd like that better," I say.

Kairi laughs too close to the phone and I hold it away from my ear to combat the static.

"What are you doing tonight?" she asks, and I picture her in the back room at the shop, feet up on the desk, examining her nail polish.

"Actually," I say, "How do you feel about Gaston's?"

"Gaston's?"

I hear distinct rustling. She must be sitting up straight now, putting her feet on the floor. I think I hear her knock something over.

"Yeeeeess," I say slowly, waiting for her to compose herself.

"Oof! Sorry, I just… knocked something… hang on."

I count to ten in my head. I'd like to think it's one of life's simple joys to know someone so well you can pretty much guess what they're doing even when you can't see them. This makes me start thinking of blindness analogies – then Kairi's my Braille, and then it just sounds dirty. I give up.

"Ok!" she says brightly. "Ok, well, isn't that on what, 40th? 45th?"

"44th," I reply. "Look, someone kind of invited me to meet up there, and I dunno if I wanna go alone."

"Someone? Someone… male?"

I sigh, glancing up at Sora again. "Yeah, but I dunno if it's like that or not. I was trying to get a good reading when you called."

"Oh! Ohmygosh, I'm sorry, just call me back, okay?"

"No! No, Kai, he's already, I mean, it's fine. But, um, do you wanna go with me?"

"Well, do you think he'll mind?" she asks, and I look away from Sora as he turns in my direction. "I mean, is it like… a date?"

"No, I mean, I'm sure it would be fine. He said it was gonna be a group. I don't want to be all alone. Please?"

Kairi sighs, and I make a sort of pleading noise at her. "Fiiiine, okay, but only because I _happen_ to be free tonight!" she says finally.

"Thank you," I say, breathing a sigh of relief. Kairi's always been an excellent wingman.

"But I have to tell you, Gaston's always just makes me think of Beauty and the Beast. You know, that guy? Gaston? The big jerkoff that's obsessed with himself?"

"I had forgotten," I reply, shaking my head. "But thanks for reminding me."

"Yeah, well, he's _kind of_ your twin. You know, I figured you'd know who he is."

"Ha, ha."

Kairi laughs into the phone again, this time at an appropriate distance.

"Bye, you," she says. "Call me when you wanna go."

"Bye."

I spend a few more hours attempting to write, going over older pieces, editing, before I notice the time and decide to head home. Packing up my laptop, I notice the coffee boy approaching my table again.

"So, not to be overly persistent, but you'll be there?" he asks, grinning.

"I think so," I reply. Then, "I had plans with a friend of mine, but I figure it's alright if she comes too, right?"

Sora looks surprised, and I notice that his eyes are blue as they momentarily widen.

"Yeah," he says, smiling. "As long as she's cool, right?"

_Yeah, okay, what is this, the tenth grade?_

"She's cool," I respond, and I throw my bag over my shoulder. "I'll see you at… 8:30?"

Sora checks his watch, a surprisingly nice one, at that. It looks expensive. "That gives me an hour and a half from now," he says, "And I gotta spend an hour of that here, don't I? Yeah, I'll see you then."

He smiles, and I smile, and I'm pretty sure he's gay. I think. Whatever. I head home to change.

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Okay, imagine this. You're 23, almost 24. You're a single, gorgeous bisexual male who works in a coffee shop, and you're out at a bar with a large group of friends. There's some kind of shitty rock band playing, and a guy you're semi-attracted to walks in the door with the most beautiful woman you have ever seen. How can that guy compete? How do you imagine you saw anything in anyone else, ever?

My point exactly. I walk into Gaston's with Kairi, and immediately I see Sora on the outskirts of a large group. He's laughing and talking to a guy with a long, gray ponytail, and he's more than cute now, I think, he's kind of shockingly attractive. At least to me. He looks up and does somewhat of a double take, then waves me down, and I nudge Kairi to indicate our direction.

"Riku, was it?"

I nod, always the stoic. "Hey," I say. "This is my friend Kairi. Kairi, this is Sora."

Kairi flashes a smile, shaking Sora's hand. "And how do you two know each other?" she asks, looking back and forth between the two of us.

"I work at the Happy Duke," Sora says, and I stand there awkwardly.

"Ahhh."

Can I just say here – what the _fuck_ is that? Why do girls _do_ that? I told her on the way over. I told her at least twelve hundred times how we met. She insisted we go over every second of interaction numerous times in careful analysis. Then, we reach the bar, she meets Sora, and what's the first thing she asks? I will never understand women.

Kairi looks back and forth once more, then grins and takes the seat beside Sora at the bar. I sit down next to her, at the end of the row, and order a beer.

Now, I can't lie, this is where the evening starts to get a little fuzzier. The band was awful, that much I remember, and Kairi seemed to have an abundance of witty comments. She and I hang out so much that we tend to finish each other's sentences, and our banter seemed to amuse Sora to no end.

Four or five beers later, Kairi's squeezing out of her seat with a quick "I'll be _right_ back," and as she disappears into the bathroom, Sora looks over at me.

I meet his eyes, daring him to take me home. It's been a while since my last fling, and at this point, I'm drunk enough that I think he might be the one. You know, _the_ one, at least for tonight. He's intelligent, and funny, and all night he's been making me and Kairi laugh.

"I'm glad you came out tonight," he says, taking a long swig off his bottle. I can only describe his voice at this point as husky – lazy – and I can't even _begin_ to tell you how attractive I inexplicably find it.

The band has gone, and now they're playing some obscenely loud cover of a Beatles song. Sora's voice is almost drowned out in the din.

"Me too," I shout, and he says something back that I can't hear so I scoot into Kairi's seat.

"What?"

"I said, I like your friend, too," he says, more loudly this time.

My heart sinks, but I force a smile. Maybe he's not gay after all. "Yeah, Kairi's really something."

"You're just friends?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

I nod. "Yeah, I'm… I don't swing that way," I say lamely, waiting for the inevitable "oh."

Instead, I get a "Really?" tinged with disbelief.

I look up. "Yeah," I say. "Really. I'm gay."

Sora nods.

"Is that a problem?" I ask, strangely galvanized by my mild drunkenness.

He laughs. "No," he says, shaking his head. "I'm bi, myself."

_Fuck. Bi boys are the worst._ I feel my level of Sora-crush diminish a little.

"Well, Kairi's worth a hell of a lot more than a one night stand, so if that's where you're headed tonight, pick another girl, you know?"

Shit, now where did _that_ come from? I sigh internally. I've never been particularly composed when drunk.

"Oh! No, I don't really do that whole one night stand thing," Sora replies, and he shoves me a little. "Jeez, man, chill out, would you? I'm not after her, I just think it's crazy you've been coming to my work every day for like, I dunno, forever? And I've never met you before. You're more fun than you look, you know that?"

I grin and finish my beer, gesturing at the bartender for another.

Sora looks at his expensive watch, and I remember noticing it before, too. I'm about to make some stupid drunken comment about it when Kairi reappears, hands on hips.

"Spot stealer!" she cries, fixing me with an accusatory stare. I shrug and get started on bottle number six.

Sora stretches his arms a little, then stands. "It's about time for me to head out," he says, "It's getting kinda late and I'm just tired enough for this place to seem loud now."

"What! But- well, here, let me give you my number," Kairi's saying, and before I can do anything about anything, she's grabbing Sora's hand to scrawl her number across his palm in pen. For some reason, Kairi is the only person I know – probably the only person in the _world_ – who can do this without it looking desperate.

Sora finishes off his beer and pushes the bottle away, studying the number on his hand.

"Well," he says, "I don't work until noon tomorrow… do you guys wanna come over? To my place, that is."

I look at Kairi, and Kairi looks at me. For a brief, fleeting moment, the word "threesome" flashes through my brain, and I drink it away with disgust before getting to my feet.

"Well, I have to open the store in the morning," Kairi says, and I ignore her excuse, tell her to live a little, and follow Sora out the door.

"_But what if he's a serial killer_?!" she whispers urgently in my ear, and I turn to face her in disbelief. She's already laughing.

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"No," Sora says with conviction, tipping his can of Pabst almost completely upside down to get the last bit out. "No, I don't."

"Don't what?" Kairi slurs, and she leans back against the couch.

"I don't think that 26 counts as being in your… late twenties," he explains, though I wonder how Kairi missed the question – we'd been discussing the matter for at least ten minutes.

Sora's apartment is decorated with glow-in-the-dark stars. I know, right? I want to make fun of them, but I'm too drunk and lazy. It's surprisingly neat and organized, and the couch, though clearly well-worn, is draped in some kind of Native American looking tapestry. There's a small-ish TV across the room, and a sizable collection of DVDs stacked beside it. Next to those, there's a tall bookshelf, overflowing with books, and then the front door. On the other side, there's a bathroom. You know, the kind with the toilet that flushes with a chain you pull from above, and a pedestal sink with a rusting faucet. His bathtub stands on four lion feet, and the showerhead is a new addition – white and plastic and horrendously out of place. I imagine it has different settings with little pictures to indicate each one.

_Those pictures never seem very accurate_, I think, and I pan my head more to the left to continue my scan. There's a closed door to what I assume must be Sora's bedroom, and then the kitchen, a small area kind of behind the room we're in but also kind of next to it. It's dimly lit now, but I notice the counters are a truly hideous shade of 70's yellow. He's got a decent enough fridge and a small table in the middle, with four chairs.

"Riku!"

Slowly, I turn my head back to the others, and I'm pretty sure my eyes are covered in a layer of alcohol.

"Uh huh?"

"S'your turn," Sora says, gesturing to the coffee table in front of us.

"Oh." I pick a card from the remainder of the middle ring. I stare at the 8 of clubs for a good long while.

"Black means I take the drinks? Or I give them away?"

"Take 'em like a man," Kairi replies, pumping her fist lazily.

"Nnh.."

Taking those 8 drinks is the last _real_ thing I remember. Weirdly enough though, I've never forgotten the dream.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the dream, I'm at home. I'm sitting in the living room, and I'm completely surrounded by people. I think I know all of them, but I'm not sure. On one side of me is Axel, my roommate, and on the other side is Sora. I'm holding one of six hoses and there's a hookah on the coffee table. For some reason, I can't fathom taking a drag. In reality, how many times have I smoked hookah? I can't even fucking count. Whatever though, right? Whatever. So I'm sitting in between Sora and Axel, holding this hose like it's the fucking holy grail or something, totally in awe of it and totally terrified.

"What are you waiting for?" Axel says, and I feel him judging me. "What's wrong with you?"

But Sora's on my other side, whispering in my ear.

"It's a lie," he's saying, "It's not what you think it is."

I try to talk, but no sound comes out, and suddenly everything gets real quiet. I think I hear someone knocking on the door, and I look around, but I can't even see the door through the crowd of people. I try to follow the sound, but all I can see is people, and all I can smell is roses.

Then Sora's hand is on mine, and I feel warm, and he's taking the hose away from me – saving me from whatever terrible lie it supposedly holds. A second later, he sucks in smoke, and when he exhales, the smoke is pink, and it's Kairi.

She giggles and winks at me, and she smells like roses.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wake up to the dulcet tones of Lady fucking Gaga next to my face. I can't seem to open my eyes yet, and all I can hear is a jangly cell phone commanding me to "just dance".

Fuck. I grope around in the area next to me until I feel a vibrating piece of plastic in my hand, then flip it open and press it vaguely against my face.

"Hhh…lo?"

Answering the phone is a decision I immediately regret, mostly because the phone in question is not actually mine.

"Kairi? Hello?"

"Kairi," I repeat, attempting to swallow what feels like a mouthful of cotton.

"I must have the wrong number," the voice says slowly, and things begin to click for me.

"No! Wait, no, this is, ah… this is Kairi's phone," I choke out, forcing my eyes open. "What time is it?"

"Well, that's just it," the voice says, and I realize it must be one of her employees. "It's 9:30, and my shift is supposed to be starting, but the store's not open, and usually she comes in at 8."

Ah, shit. Where _is_ Kairi, anyway? I'm alone in Sora's living room, sprawled across the couch.

"Uh," I say, stalling. "She's okay. Let me, um, let me go find her, and I'll have her call you. Okay. Bye."

I don't wait for her to respond, flipping the pink phone shut and dropping it to the floor. Let's see… if Kairi's phone is here, well, there's her jacket, and there are her shoes, and there's her… shirt? Is that her shirt on the floor? The door to Sora's bedroom is closed. That fucker.

I stumble across the living room and bang on the bedroom door until I hear voices on the other side. Kairi's voice is muffled, but definitely there, and then I know she's seen the clock because I hear her scream, and then freak out slightly more quietly, and then the door is flying open in front of me.

"Morning, sunshine," I drawl, holding up her shirt. She has the worst sex hair I've ever seen, and her makeup has faded into vague raccoon eyes. "Someone called, from the store."

She snatches her shirt from my drink-stiffened fingertips and yanks it over her head as fast as she can, cursing all the while.

"I'll call you," I add, as she's opening the door. "Later, that is."

The door slams, and Kairi's gone. Turning back to the bedroom, I consider Sora. He's pulled on an old, gray pair of sweats, and he appears to be hobbling lethargically in my direction.

"Why?" I groan, leaning against the doorframe. "Why, why, _why_ did you do it?"

"What, Kairi?"

_Asshole_.

"Well," I start to say, but I trail off as he passes me, interested instead in his tattoos. A number of silhouetted birds climb from the small of his back up over his left shoulder, varying in size and shape, and on his right shoulder, there's an old-fashioned plane, piloted by what appears to be a wolf in aviator goggles.

It's during this moment that I notice the airplane blueprint tacked up on the wall in his bedroom, the brochures near my feet for skydiving, for base jumping, for hot air ballooning. Adrenaline junkie? I'm really starting to wonder about this guy.

"Do you want something to eat?" he calls from the kitchen, and I peer around the doorway.

"What are you offering?" I ask warily.

Sora shrugs, head stuck in the fridge. "Toast? I'm kind of low on food right now."

I make my way into the kitchen, wanting water more than anything else, and take a seat at the table. After a moment, Sora takes the spot across from me, spreading jelly on an untoasted slice of bread. I refrain from commenting. Something is still bothering me, and it takes me a minute to remember what it is.

"You know," I say, "I can never go back to the Happy Duke now. I have to find somewhere new to write."

"What? Why?"

"You slept with my best friend, you're never going to call her, and that's all fine and good except that you and I can never be friends, and I can't keep seeing you there, can I? There's no way it can lead to anything good."

Sora puts down his "toast." "Who said I was never gonna call her?" he says, affronted. Holding up his hand, he shows me her number, scrawled still in dying ballpoint pen across his skin. "I have her number."  
"Oh. Right."

I guess I forgot about that.

"Look, I like her a lot."

"She's very likable."

"I'd like to get to know her better," he says.

I sigh. I guess this mean's Kairi's a good lay, or I'm sure he wouldn't be interested. I'm kind of done with the conversation, and I stare at the empty table space in front of me.

"I like your tattoos," I say, after a while. "The wolf is a nice touch."

"It's a coyote," he says quickly.

"Uh… okay?"

"I'm half Indian."

I glance at the coffee table in the living room; the pile of empty beer cans.

"Don't _even_," he says, and I'm weirdly embarrassed that he noticed me looking.

"I- sorry, I mean… Uh… what's your other half?" I ask, eager to change the subject.

He laughs. "My last name is Panucci. Take a guess."

"Italiano?"

"Ding, ding, ding."

"Do you speak it?"

He shakes his head. "I wish. I was kind of a rebellious kid, and I wanted nothing to do with my dad, you know? He tried to teach me, and I did my best to forget."

"Rebellious?"

"Well, nothing _extreme_," he says, grinning. "I was just embarrassed, you know? No one likes their parents when they're growing up. I had some friends on the rez, though. My mom would take me over there when I was younger and I would play basketball with them, that kinda thing. I got a little more interested in her culture than my dad's, and it used to drive him nuts."

We talk this way for a while, I'm mostly asking him questions about himself, trying to squeeze something out of him to write about and also trying to get a feel for who's about to be attempting to date Kairi. Sora's 23. He grew up in a city maybe 5 hours from here and has a little sister in the Air Force. His father works at the newspaper and his mother is a nutritionist. I ask him what he's doing here, and he shrugs and tells me he works at the Happy Duke. Is he in college? No. Was he ever?

"Yeah," he answers, after a moment. "I went to college, did the undergrad thing, colored inside the lines, got my degree."

"In… cappuccino art?"

"Aeronautical engineering. I guess they're calling it Aero_space_ Engineering now, actually."

_Seriously?_

It takes me a minute to let this sink in.

"I-I'm sorry, you're a _rocket scientist_?"

Sora laughs, stretching his arms, then locking them behind his head. "You could say that."

Oh, man. Oh, _man_.

"But you'd be wrong."

"Huh?"

"I'm actually a combination barista-slash-server," he continues. "But I _could_ be a rocket scientist, if I wanted to."

He stands up, placing his empty plate in the sink. "I gotta get ready for work, though."

"Work," I say weakly. "Right. Okay, well I guess I should leave."

"Unless you want to clean," he replies, laughing again. "But I'll probably see you around later, anyway. By the radiator, you know the drill."

"Ahh, maybe. My roommates-"

"Your roommates can _deal_ with it, because I've just spent a good hour eating bread and telling you all about myself, and now it's your turn to spend an hour at my place of work, drinking coffee and reciprocating with equally personal details about _your_ life."

"Believe me," I say, "You don't want to hear about my life. My life is boring."

"Not as boring as my average workday," he responds, and I don't know if I can argue this one.

"Well, go on, then, get out! Out, out, out, I have to shower!"

"Alright, alright, I'm going!"

Sora is shooing me out of his apartment. Have I ever been shooed before? Come to think of it, probably not.

"Go write stories!" he laughs, pushing me out the door.

And I do.


	3. I Really Otter Stop Making Otter Puns

_Go write stories_.

I don't know what it is about these words that kicks my brain into gear, but whatever it is, it works.

After going home briefly to shower and change, I spend the entire afternoon at the Happy Duke, writing the way I used to write – with a ballpoint pen in a spiral notebook, and without an end in sight. I do something I never really thought about trying before, and I tie six or seven of my short stories into one. I change names, I change characters, I add meat to my old plot skeletons and backbone to my old plotless characters.

I'm lucky, in a way. The Happy Duke is busy as all hell, so Sora doesn't end up having all that much time to spend at my table, distracting me. Towards the evening, though, the crowd finds its way out the door and I'm one of only a few patrons in the café.

_It's alright_, I think, when I hear Sora telling a coworker he's taking his lunch. _My hand was starting to get tired anyway._

I refrain from looking up until I hear him sit down across from me.

"What's up?" I say, offering it as more of a statement than a question.

"Your turn," he replies, resting his upper body on the table in exhaustion. "Actually, my turn. 20 questions in reverse."

I was hoping he would have somehow forgotten – that he would rather bitch about how busy the café was than ask me personal questions. It would appear to be quite the opposite.

"You're 26," he says.

I agree. "I'm 26."

"Did you always live here?"

I shake my head. "I grew up on the East Coast. Tried to go to college in the Midwest. Spent 6 years all over Europe, and finally ended up out here."

"Tried to go to college?"

"I dropped out."

"Your major?"

"Undeclared."

"Philosophy," Sora says, his smile widening. "Or… Creative Writing."

I blink. "I was undeclared."

"I know," he says. "I'm just thinking of what it would have been."

"Aeronautical Engineering," I reply, making a face.

"You're kidding."

"I am. I've never been into physics, any of that stuff."

"Me neither," he says, taking a sip of my coffee. Yeah, that's right, he's drinking _my_ coffee. Without asking. Am I gonna say anything about it? Probably not.

"I don't get it," I say. "How could you major in rocket science without being into… rocket science?"

Sora stares at my coffee, swirling it around. "I like things that fly," he says, after a while, and I leave it alone. After another minute or so, he looks up, eyes bright again. "Okay. So you dropped out. You traveled Europe, like every other American dropout, trying to soak up some kind of culture and free yourself of strip malls and McDonald's and Starbucks and find something _real_."

I narrow my eyes. "Are you mocking me?"

"A little," he says, grinning. "What! Look, everyone does it, everyone rich enough, anyway."

"So you're calling me a spoiled rich kid?"

I feel ridiculous. I'm too old for this bullshit. I'm too old to be _bothered_ by it, but I am. I'm really bothered by it.

"I lived under a bridge for a fucking _month_," I snarl, _way_ too defensive. "I-"

"You did drugs," Sora says. "Lots of drugs. And you drank _all_ the time. And you lived under a bridge and you were friends with hookers and you spoke, like, _fourteen_ different languages. I bet you dated an anorexic Swede – _maybe you even have a kid_," he whispers, overdramatic.

I hate how spot-on he is. No, I was never friends with _hookers_, and no, I didn't actually speak fourteen different languages. I did date a guy – briefly – in Sweden, but I most definitely do not have a kid, and he was only anorexic because- oh, good God.

"What do your parents do?" he asks, visibly pleased at my dismay.

"I'm 26 years old, what do my parents have to do with anything?"

"Oh, calm down," he says, leaning back in his chair with a hearty smile. "Look, I owe you a little more credit than most – you stuck with the whole expatriate thing for much longer than most people do. I'm sure you weren't that predictable the _whole_ time, or the continent of Europe would have thrown you out for being too much of an unbearable hipster."

I grumble. Like he's not? He works in a fucking coffee shop. He's wearing another _sweater_ today. Solid black, and loose, straight cut blue jeans. I wish I could call him out with hipster shoes, but they're just a pair of classic Adidas, black and white, three stripes, the usual. I wish they were a different pair, one with flashy colors, or – God forbid – Converse, but I can't find anything fad-oriented about him to make fun of.

"What do your parents do?" he repeats.

"They're both in real estate."

He nods. "When was the last time you _spoke_ to either of them?"

_Oh, fuck you_. "… about a year ago."

"Oh, that's not so bad!"

"Next question," I growl, wishing I had coffee to sip angrily. It's really too bad mine was _stolen_.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I'll be nice. What brought you out here?"

"It's a long story," I mutter.

"Well, I have 14 minutes of lunch break left, so get crackin'."

I hate telling this story. It's a story that highlights all my failures and all of my friends' successes. But whatever. Fair's fair, right?

"My friend Zexion owns the house I live in right now. I've known him since I was in preschool. He's smart. Really smart. Like, he graduated high school in two years and went straight into college, got an MBA and a phenomenal job. He's… doing pretty well for himself. So he bought a house, but he's never around to live in it, because he works mostly overseas."

"Is this one of your stories?" Sora asks nonchalantly.

I glare. "No, this is my life. And I'm not done. You asked, now listen. What brought me here was the offer to live in a luxury home on the water for free, compliments of my childhood friend. My roommates are… well, there's Axel, who Zexion met at school. He's in advertising, works with a guy named Roxas who's over at our place so often he might as well live there. And there's Demyx, who's a sound tech at the convention center."

"And why does that make you so angry?" Sora cuts in, slurping the last of my coffee from the cup.

"Excuse me?"

"You look mad."

I hesitate. "Because I love where I live, but I can't keep- I can't… I, ah… I don't like that I live there for free. I don't like being in debt to anyone, much less one of my old friends."

"Well, it sounds like he just wants to look out for you guys. You know, he takes care of his friends, that's all. I'm sure he's not expecting any of you to pay rent, or he would have asked, right? I mean, not that I know him. I'm just saying."

I say nothing. I can feel Sora's eyes on me, and I swear to God I can almost hear his brain clicking and whirring and figuring out-

"But you're the only one," he says slowly. "You're the only one who isn't paying, aren't you?"

"Actually, this whole thing is none of your business," I snap, fidgeting with my pen and wishing more than anything that Sora would just leave.

"And you feel bad, because you think you're freeloading off of your friend because the others have jobs and pay rent, and you don't."

"Stop," I say. "Just stop."

"That's gotta be hard."

I can't tell if he's mocking me again or not, but I don't like it.

"I'm not," he says suddenly. "Mocking you. I'm not."

I'm starting to think he's actually inside my brain.

"Look," I say. "Can we just-"

"Go to the next question?" he asks eagerly. "Yeah! Um, let's see… what's your favorite?"

"My favorite what?"

"Anything," he replies, tilting the chair back on two legs. "Food, color, vacation destination, breed of cat."

This makes me laugh a little, and his easy smile relaxes me. I put down my pen and try to think of my favorite, well, anything.

"Favorite food," I repeat, biting my lip. "Pie. Probably pie. My favorite color is green. My favorite vacation destination… would have to be… Rome. And I don't like cats."

Sora looks immediately alarmed. "You don't like _cats_?"

"No, I think they're… annoying?"

I'm kind of at a loss. He looks deeply disturbed by this information, and it's making me kind of uncomfortable.

"I love cats," he says eventually, quietly, and after another moment of silent memorial for all the cats I could have loved, he brightens up again. "What else do you like?"

You get it, right? Why I'm laughing now? Why I can't _help_ but laugh? I mean, really, _what else do I like_? Well, a lot of things.

"Raindrops on roses?"

He laughs then, and he tips his chair back to the floor. "Whiskers on kittens."

"Uhhh, something with mittens. Brown paper packages wrapped up with string. I dunno, you got me."

"These are a few of my favorite things," he murmurs, and from behind the counter, I hear a timer go off. "That's my cue," he says, and he takes my coffee cup when he leaves.

A minute or so later, he comes by with a new cup of coffee and a chocolate chip cookie.

"For humoring me," he says, and I make sure to wave goodbye to him when I finally leave.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jump with me, now – it's two weeks later, and I'm sitting next to Kairi on a train, watching rain fall on what I'm sure is called "marsh" or "wetlands" but is in fact something more along the lines of "lots of mud". We're on our way to visit her family, something I grudgingly agree to do every once in a while, and we've been on the train for three of the six estimated total hours of the trip.

"You don't mind, do you?"

Despite my constant assurances, Kairi is quadruple-checking that I'm okay with her "stealing my find".

"He's all yours," I reply, gazing intently out the window. "He's not really my type, anyway. I mean, for dating, that is."

She raises an eyebrow.

"Not your type?"

"Not my type."

"Well… what's wrong with him?"

Dear Lord, women irritate me.

"Nothing's _wrong_ with him," I sigh. "I just like him better as a friend."

Kairi responds by pointing out the window at the now-visible Pacific Ocean.

"Yes, Kairi. Water. Big water."

She smacks my arm, glaring at me.

"It's pretty," she says petulantly, and I think I may have escaped the Sora conversation – at least for the time being.

I think I see an otter. That's right, a fucking _otter_. I really "otter" go online when we get to Kairi's parents' and find out if otters even live in this part of the world, I think, and I momentarily wonder when making puns with the word otter became something anyone under age 75 could even fathom doing. This disturbs me, so I think about Kairi instead.

Whenever Kairi and I do anything together, which is pretty often, all things considered, people _always_ think we're a couple. Kairi loves this – absolutely _lives_ for these moments. She'll hold my hand at the mall and take pictures, oh God, the pictures. I can't tell you how many pictures I have in front of various landmarks and monuments, me smiling half-heartedly and Kairi pressing her chapstick'd lips onto my cheek like some kind of middle school girlfriend. For a time, we were listed as engaged on Facebook (yeah, I went there), but then she had a boyfriend, so our engagement unraveled, and then we never got around to putting it back after she and Boyfriend broke up, because neither of us actually gives a flying fuck about Facebook.

Two little boys are running up and down the aisle, shrieking at the tops of their lungs. They're playing Cowboys and Indians, and this makes me think of Sora. I should probably be more ashamed to say things like that, but I'm not. Not really. I imagine Sora skinning deer and dancing around a fire, and then I imagine him imagining me on a white horse, spreading disease across his country and slaughtering his family, so I decide to leave stereotypes behind and wonder if what I saw in the water was really an otter. I can't remember ever playing Cowboys and Indians at any point in my childhood, and I wonder if I missed out. Probably not.

"He asked me to dinner on Friday," Kairi says suddenly, and I pry my eyes away from the renegade children.

"Next Friday?"

"Mmhmm." She nods, carefully examining her French manicure. "And you won't believe where."

I'm drawing a blank. "Uhh… where?"

"L'Ora di Mezzanotte!" she exclaims. "Where we had _our_ first date!"

I roll my eyes. "He _would_ take you there," I mutter. I like to practice a healthy skepticism regarding young men who try to date Kairi. She's quite a find, and I won't settle for any less than the best for her.

Naturally, her parents _love_ me. Every time we visit them, her father tries once again to coerce me into reconsidering my sexual orientation and marrying his daughter. It would be awkward, but I've grown accustomed to it, so it's become a sort of joke between me and Kairi.

The last time we went to visit Kairi's family was spring – maybe it was Easter, I don't remember. Either way, it's freezing cold now, and the holidays are just around the corner. When we finally get off the damn train, we hurry to her mother's waiting minivan and within minutes we're lugging our bags into her childhood home, one of those ancient Victorian homes that can only be described as grand. Kairi's room hasn't changed since she moved out after high school, and after dropping her bags unceremoniously on her bed, she helps me set up camp on the floor beneath an Alanis Morissette poster.

We return downstairs for the best meal I've had in months, courtesy of Kairi's mother, and once we're on round three of after-dinner coffee, Kairi and I decide to make our escape. Despite the cold, we've retreated to her old treehouse to share a bottle of wine, and I'm listening to Kairi theorize about her future loneliness.

"If," she begins, gesturing widely, "If I- I mean, if we _both_ reach… if someday we're both _old_, and we're both _alone_, will you, Riku Walker, will you marry me?"

I snort. Fat chance.

"That won't happen," I say, swishing the wine around in its bottle. "Not to you. And anyway, isn't the cutoff for these deals traditionally 40 or 50? Why do we have to be old?"

"Because," she says grimly, "If I'm going to be lonely, I at least want the chance to be one hell of a cougar before I marry my gay best friend."

This is precisely why I love Kairi.

"Will you?" she pleads, gently pulling the bottle from my fingertips. "_Please_, Riku!"

"I'll agree to it, but it'll never happen," I say again. "You're a rarity, Kairi – you're intelligent and funny and outgoing and ambitious, and you also happen to be drop dead gorgeous."

Kairi exhales for kind of a long time, shaking her head. "What_ever_," she says. "I'm ordinary. Dreadfully so."

"You're 25 years old and you own and run your own business."

"So I'm mildly successful," she admits, taking a long swig off the bottle. "I'm certainly not drop dead gorgeous. If anything, I might be kind of cute sometimes. You know, like a little kid or a baby animal. I'm not _sexy_. Men want sexy."

"How do you figure that?" I ask, flicking a rapidly approaching ant out the door of the treehouse. I look up when she doesn't say anything, and I truly do wonder how she figures she isn't blindingly beautiful. Her hair is a deep maroon in the shadow of the tree, and where the sunset shines through the cracks it glows a bright magenta. I don't think I've ever seen a zit on her face, and her eyes are a blue I've never seen on anyone else in the world, with the exception of Sora. That's just it though – the things that really make Kairi beautiful aren't her expert application of eyeshadow or her dangly little earrings – they're the things that girls never seem to want to appreciate about themselves. The curve of her legs, splayed out in front of her on the old, splintery wood of the treehouse; the shadow coming off her collarbone in the kind of mountainous, momentous sunset you can only find on the West coast; the blue of her eyes and the long, slender silhouette of her fingers wrapped around the neck of a secret bottle of wine. The fact that she even suggested we sneak away from the family gathering to drink together in the treehouse – some kind of clandestine society of young drunks – these are the things that make Kairi beautiful, and of course she'll never believe it.

I'm trying to figure out a way to tell her when a head pops up over the edge of the ladder.

"Seriously, you guys?"

It's Kairi's older brother, Leon, and he hoists himself into the treehouse after eyeing our wine disapprovingly. I will admit to having a major crush on Leon, but alas, he's married, and anyway, I'd like for once to be the older guy in a relationship.

"We had to escape," Kairi says apologetically, stretching her legs and scooting over to make room for Leon to sit down. "Once Mom started talking about arranging a family vacation, I figured it was time to disappear or be roped into some kind of terrible road trip."

The treehouse creaks as Leon gets situated, and I wonder for a fleeting moment if the whole thing will come crashing down under our combined weight. Leon laughs, a deep, throaty laugh that makes me kind of melt a little in my stomach, and he reaches for the bottle.

"I oughta confiscate this," he says, grinning. "My little sister, getting wasted in the treehouse! And you!" he adds, shoving me a little. "An accomplice!"

"She said she was legal!" I reply incredulously, and Leon laughs again amidst Kairi's semi-drunk squeals of "I'm 25 years old!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Consider it confiscated," he says, and he tilts his head back to drink. I watch the way his jaw juts out, the straight lines of his face. I've never told Kairi how hot I find her brother, but then again, why should I? She'll just make fun of me. He makes a face as he swallows, handing the bottle back to me.

"Or not," he says. "How much was that, six bucks? God, Kai, I expected better from you!"

"Hey now, at least it's not from a box," she says, as if this helps her case, and I zone out a little as they swap memories from when they were younger. I perk back up when I hear Leon badgering her about her love life.

"Shut up, shut up, my love life is nonexistent," she's saying, kicking Leon furiously as he laughs at her.

"Uh, excuse me?" I cut in, glad to finally be able to participate. "Did you not _just_ tell me you had a hot date for next Friday night?"

"It's not a _hot date_," she protests, and Leon raises his eyebrows, looking back and forth between her and me.

I blink at her. "Well, what is it then? A lukewarm date? I mean really, he's a nice enough guy."

"Well, he's _nice_, yeah, but he probably doesn't even like me. I mean, we only met because he was interested in _you_, Riku."

"Whoah, whoah, wait, okay, hold on. This guy is into both of you?"

"He's not _into_ me," I say, holding up a hand to stop Kairi from attempting to explain. "I met him because I go to the coffee shop he works at, like, six days a week. He asked me if I wanted to catch some music with him _and his friends_, and I brought Kairi with, and then-"

"And then he called me later and asked me out," Kairi says loudly, clearly trying to head me off before I tell her brother about the rest of the night.

Leon looks at me, then at Kairi. "Did you sleep with him?" he asks.

Kairi says "no" at the same moment that I say "yes", then we switch and I say "no" while she says "yes", and then I'm silent while Kairi turns red and tries to explain.

"Okay, _maybe_ I slept with him, but Riku was there too!"

This causes Leon's eyebrows to shoot even higher than their previous position, and I wonder if they'll just keep going and disappear into his hair.

"No, that sounded bad," she says, and she pauses to take a large gulp of wine before trying again. "Okay. We _both_ went to his place and played cards, and we were all really drunk, and… I slept with him. But Riku was totally there, just… passed out. In the other room."

Leon shakes his head, grinning. "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia," he says, and I laugh.

"It's not really as skanky as it sounds," Kairi says in a small voice, and I lean over to pat her on the shoulder.

Leon takes another sip of wine, despite his earlier criticisms, then leans back against the wall of the treehouse.

"Okay," he says. "So what's his name? Tell me about him."

"His name is Sora," Kairi replies, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Sora Panucci. And, let's see… Well, he works in a coffee shop. He's… 23? He went to MIT…"

"He went to MIT and he works in a coffee shop?"

Kairi nods.

"Did he… graduate?"

"Um, I think so, I mean, I don't- I don't really know," Kairi says, shrugging. "I don't know him very well yet."

"Oh, he graduated," I say. "He's a fucking rocket scientist. He has a degree in Aerospace Engineering."

Kairi's eyes widen. "_Really?_"

I nod slowly, wishing I didn't know more about him than she does. "Yeah. We had breakfast after you left. What else did I learn… He's got a degree in rocket science, he's half Indian, or Native American, or whatever's politically correct these days, and half Italian. He has tattoos. I dunno. It's not like I know him either."

"Tattoos?" Leon repeats. "Of what?"

"Birds," Kairi and I say in unison, and she stares at me.

"On his back. And an airplane," she says slowly. "With a coyote, on his arm. And a pair of wings on one of his ankles. And… the symbol for Mercury."

Leon and I are silent.

"You know, like the planet."

"I didn't see that one," I say, without thinking.

"It's on his… hip. Area," she says awkwardly, and her face is almost as red as her hair.

I can't think of anything to say, and Leon clears his throat.

"Honestly?" he says, after a moment. "He sounds kinda weird."

"He's not _weird_," I say, defending Kairi's taste in men. Okay, so maybe I'm defending _my_ taste in men, but at this point, he's still Kairi's interest. "I mean, he's a little… eccentric, I guess. You know, with the tattoos, and the coffee, and the rocket science. But he's a really nice guy, and he's not weird like, I dunno, Actually-Insane-Weird, he's more like Interesting-And-Quirky-Weird."

To tell the truth, I didn't just talk to Sora when we had breakfast after Kairi left that day. I talked to him every single day for the two weeks that followed, with the exclusion of the four days out of those fourteen when he didn't have work. I talked to him this morning, before we got on the train. I may not have learned many tangible facts to list off, but I feel like I know him well enough to say that he's not a creep, and he's genuinely interested in Kairi, and he's charming enough for her to be genuinely interested in him. I guess they talked a couple times during that time as well, but mostly just to figure out a night when they were both free so they could have a proper date. On these occasions, I would get an unashamed phone call from Kairi directly after the fact, and the next morning, Sora would plop down across from me at my table and mention it off-handedly, asking me for advice on what to wear when the day finally came.

I have to say, I'm actually enjoying the experience, and right now, which is to say, _now_ now, I'm enjoying looking back on it with kind of a disappointed fascination. Thinking back, I'm watching this relationship bloom in front of my very eyes, and now that I've realized how crazy I am for Sora, I wish more than anything else that I'd realized it in time, before he'd fallen in love with her, before any of this had gone anywhere.

On the other hand, who's to say that if Sora and Kairi weren't together, he'd be with me? Who knows? Whatever. This is Walker, signing off for the night. I know, I know, it's only 10:30, but I gotta get my laundry in before I go to bed, and… why am I bothering to type excuses into a manuscript? Fuck it, what are first drafts for? Goodnight, computer. Goodnight, Word document. Goodnight.


	4. Christmas

Ready for another little jump? Good. My research (I looked at the calendar on my cell phone) indicates that Kairi and Sora's first date happened on December 20th of last year. The morning after, Kairi naturally called to squeal at me and recount every mind-numbing detail of what she ate and what he ate and how he was _so_ much fun and _such_ a gentleman and _oh Riku, chivalry isn't dead after all_!

But now, as I just told you, we're going to jump. Not far, but a jump nonetheless. It's Christmas Eve, and Zexion is briefly in town. He's going to spend tonight with us, at his house, then fly to the Bahamas tomorrow to spend a few days vacationing with his family, and finally, he's informed us, he's flying to Stockholm for his boss's black tie New Year's Eve party.

Currently, I'm getting drunk off Zexion's imported champagne in the kitchen. Kairi is with Sora and his friends - they invited me to the same party but I decided that my semi-annual Zexion reunion was more important, and I'm hanging out with them tomorrow night anyway. The dulcet tones of Steve Tyrell are drifting in from the living room, and I have to admit I'm kind of hiding in here from the others. Demyx stepped outside to smoke, and I was left with Zexion, Axel, and of course, Roxas, who I guess has nothing better to do than hang out here tonight, as usual. This wouldn't be a problem if I, like them, had a six digit income and a business brain. But I have neither of those things, and all the talk of business and money and investments was starting to become suffocating. So here I am in the kitchen, pouring myself another glass of champagne and feeling mildly sorry for myself.

I'm trying to decipher the French label on the champagne when Demyx appears, a haze of cigarette smell entering the kitchen behind him.

"Why the long face, Mr. Grinch?"

I look up, sighing. "No reason, just thinking."

"All the money talk got you down?"

"Nah, it's not really that."

Demyx opens the fridge, takes out a beer, and sits down on the stool beside me. "What is it then?" he asks, opening the bottle. "Lonely? Broke? Unrequited love? Dead pet?"

I snort. "Like Zexion would ever let anyone keep a pet in this house."

"True, true."

"Much less a dead one." I take another sip of champagne, then continue. "I dunno, I guess I was just realizing that everyone I know is kind of, I dunno, occupied. Or… has someone. I don't know."

"Occupied?"

"Well, like Zexion. He's here for one day. _One day_. And he's off flying all over the world and making money and doing important things. Axel and Roxas are the same way, except they operate from here, and you're always up to something. And now Kairi's got this boyfriend, and I mean, don't get me wrong, he's great, he's- I mean, he's a good guy. But I'm still just me, and no one wants to publish my shit. I'm stagnating."

"Stagnating," Demyx repeats, taking a large gulp of beer. "That sucks. No one wants your stories? I thought they were half-decent anyway."

"Half-decent? Thanks Demyx, that's… great. Thank you for that."

Demyx laughs just a little too hard, a little bit drunk, and smacks me on the shoulder. "I'm just kidding," he says, catching his breath. "They're good. Didn't you say you were combining them though?"

I nod. "I took a bunch of them and kind of tied them together. I'm almost done, actually. I'll start peddling it around in January. No more Riku Walker short stories. A Riku Walker novel. You know, for the ages. Or whatever. In case anyone ever wants to read it."

---

_In case anyone ever wants to read it_. It strikes me as ironic the next day when Sora asks to read my manuscript. Kairi's in the kitchen, preparing some kind of food that smells completely delicious, and Sora and I are sitting on her couch, disinterestedly watching Christmas specials on TV. Once the claymation reindeer hit, I turn instead to stare out the window at the snow. Kairi's apartment is on the fourth floor of her building, and the window in the living room looks out on the semi-busy street below. I'm watching snow fall when it happens.

"Hey, what's your book about?"

Turning back, I see Sora eyeing me over the rim of his eggnog mug.

"Uh, it's… an adventure story. It's just about this guy," I say dismissively, gulping down my own eggnog as an excuse to stop talking.

"Can I read it?"

I choke. "Um," I say. "Um, well, I don't have it with me right now."

"So let's go get it," he says cheerfully. "It's not like we have anything else to do. Kairi's forbidden me to help with the cooking. She won't even let me go into the kitchen."

I nod grimly. "I know, she does this to me all the time. She says it's like how a guy can't see his fiancée in her wedding dress until the actual wedding. I'm not allowed to see the food she's cooking until it's cooked."

"What a lady."

I don't really know what to say, so I look out the window again, but then Sora's standing up and stretching, and I have the sinking feeling that he's going to actually make me go get my shit from home.

"Come on!" he says, gesturing toward the door. "Get up, cowboy!"

Before I can respond, he's knocking on the kitchen door, and when Kairi yells at him not to come in, he shouts back that we're just gonna run over to my place and get some stuff I forgot, but that we'll be back soon enough. I can't fucking believe it.

I let Sora drag me out the door into the crisp December afternoon, and I kind of wonder how he can manage to be so damn stylish all the time. He's breathtaking, as usual, and he's stuffed his hair under a winter hat so it lies flat against his face. His jeans fit him better than any pair of jeans has ever or will ever fit me, and he's wearing a black leather jacket with a hood. He notices me staring after a moment and grimaces.

"What, is it the shoes?"

"Huh?"

"My shoes," he says again, pointing down. I hadn't even looked at them, flashy new high dunks in black and green and white. "They're ridiculous," he continues. "But my mom sent them to me for Christmas, and kicks is kicks. My old shoes were dying."

"Kicks is kicks," I repeat dumbly. I feel old, despite the fact that he's only three years younger than me.

"I dunno, maybe I'll sell them on eBay and buy something that makes me look less like a 16-year-old," he grumbles, staring at his feet.

"They're nice," I say, before I can stop myself. "They suit you. They go well with your perma-tan."

Then we're both laughing, and he shoves me into the street. "Asshole," he mutters, grinning, and a car honks at me, swerving away from me before I clamber back onto the sidewalk. I turn around, shouting "Merry Christmas!" after them in some kind of fit of second youth.

"Shit," I say breathlessly, catching up to him.

"What?"

I shake my head. "Fuck, I dunno, I don't really do stuff like this, at least not anymore. You know, like… walking places instead of taking cabs. Yelling at cars. Saying the word 'kicks'. It's like my fucking mid-life crisis or something."  
Sora grins again. "You can't have a mid-life crisis at 26. Maybe a mid-twenties crisis."

We both laugh again, and I watch our breath float away in little clouds across the street. "Really though," he says, after a few seconds of listening to our feet crunch in the snow. "I know what you mean, I guess. I still act like a kid a lot. Being an adult is _hard_. They never tell you that, you know? It's hard. And it never ends."

"That's a little morbid, don't you think?"

He looks up at me. _Shit, his eyes are so damn blue_.

"Well it's true, you know? Life just gets harder. Like, when you're a kid, your biggest problem is like… social stuff. You get in a fight with your friend, or grades – you got a C and your mom was mad. And then every summer, and every weekend, and every time you have a break from school, it's like… you don't have to do _anything_. Or if you do, it's like… your mom made you mow the lawn."

"Yeah."

"And then you finish school, and that's over. Forever!" he says, throwing up his hands. "Like, I am never ever going to have a summer to relax ever again. I mean, really? What job is going to give you three months of vacation?"

"You could be a teacher," I supply, shrugging. I understand what he's saying, of course I understand what he's saying. But I guess for me it's different, because I don't really have to do things like pay rent or bills. I write, and I try to sell my shit, but if I don't sell anything, and I don't make any money, then what happens? I take the bus instead of cabs. "Or go back to school. Grad school. Get your PhD in rocket science," I joke.

"Hmm." He digs his hands into his jacket pockets, stares off in the opposite direction for a moment. "I don't think so," he says eventually. "I'm not really into that stuff anymore."

He looks pensive, and I think of all the shit I saw in his room that first time we hung out, all the shit about airplanes, hot air balloons, anything that flies. Our feet continue to crunch in the snow, steady and rhythmic. I think about his tattoos. The birds, the coyote in the plane, and what did Kairi say? Wings on his feet? We stop at a light, and I press the button on the lamppost a few times. We wait, the walk sign changes, making those little beeping noises for the blind. We advance in silence across the street.

"I don't buy it," I say finally.

He looks up.

"That you're not into airplanes anymore."

Sora looks mildly uncomfortable.

"I mean, your tattoos," I say lamely. "And, in your room, there was… stuff. About flying. Plus, you _told _me, what, just a couple weeks ago! You told me that-that you like things that fly."

I realize after the fact how creepy it is that I even remember anything about his room, since I saw it for a total of maybe 5 seconds and it was weeks ago.

Sora's quiet again for a bit, obviously thinking of a way to hide whatever it is he's hiding from me. I guess I haven't really known him for that long, I mean, not really. Just about a month, though it feels like much longer. Being around him is easy, it's comfortable, like we've known each other for years. But we haven't, so what business is it of mine whether or not he likes rocket science anymore? Am I overstepping my boundaries here?

"It used to be my dream," he says, interrupting my neurotic thought process. "To fly. I've always been way into anything that flies, anything that defies gravity. I wanted that, and I wanted it pretty bad. It was my dream," he says again. "But it's not my dream anymore. That's all."

I nod, as if I understand, but really, what he just said was so vague that I've gained absolutely no information.

"Circumlocution," I say definitively.

Sora's grin is back, and he raises an eyebrow at me. "What's that, one of your fancy writer words?"

"Means talking around something," I explain, looking him in the eye. The grin hasn't quite reached his eyes yet, and we both know there's something he's not telling me, but the longer we hold eye contact, the more sure I am that he's not going to tell it to me now, if ever. "More or less," I add, pushing him off the sidewalk with a smirk. I'll let it go, though it's not as if I have much choice in the matter.

He laughs a little, falling back in step with me on the sidewalk, and neither of us says anything for a moment. Then:

"Non pronto," he says. And when I look at him questioningly, he smiles. "Means 'not ready'. More or less."

"Fair enough."

"I think so."

Two blocks later, Sora comments on how huge the houses are in this neighborhood. He points to a large, tudor-style house on the corner across from us.

"Shit," he says in disbelief. "Who the hell lives there, the president?"

I'm still for a moment, regarding the house. "No," I say finally. "I do."

Sora gapes at me. We go inside.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zexion left in the morning, before I went over to Kairi's, and in his wake the house is always much cleaner than when he's been gone for a while. Sora lets the heavy, wooden front door close behind him, staring wide-eyed at the front hallway around him.

"You _live_ here?"

"I told you it was nice. Take off your shoes here, or at least wipe them off on the mat. Zexion would kill you if he saw you trailing all that snow inside. These floors were expensive, you know."

And boy do I know it. When I first moved into the house, there was one rainy night when I got home late from a bar and trailed mud on the floors on my way to the couch to pass out. I never fucking heard the end of it. I don't think it's all that hard to clean, really – it's large, checkered squares of wood, some dark, some light. But apparently it's _nice_ wood. The house itself is old as all hell, and you can tell when the stairs creak or when you realize that this much dark wood hasn't been in style for the past, I don't know, hundred years? Zexion has had some renovations done (example: the floor in the front hallway), but it still has that kind of grand, old feeling to it.

Anyway, Axel and Roxas are vegging out on the couch in the living room, and I introduce them to Sora before herding him through the room and into the small hallway that leads to the stairs to my room.

"Jeez, it's like an old hotel or something," Sora murmurs, directing my attention to the chandelier hung high above the base of the stairs.

"Well yeah, but you saw the living room, Zexion's fixed some parts of it up pretty good. The kitchen is like a fucking space station, I don't understand how to use half of the appliances."

Sora laughs a little, climbing slowly up the stairs.

"He's into really old things and really new things, not much in between," I explain. I don't think Sora's really listening at this point, but it's cool. At the top of the stairs, he stops, looking down the second floor hallway.

"Keep going," I say, nudging him out of the way so I can lead. At the other end of the hallway, there's a door, leading to a narrow set of steps to an attic, which Zexion had renovated into a working third floor. There's a bathroom and a fairly large bedroom area with a skylight. It's perfect, so long as you don't mind a pretty low ceiling and dramatically sloping walls, which are two things I'm perfectly okay with. It's kind of like my own little cave, in a way, and the heating and AC vent runs directly downstairs, so we can use it like an intercom when anyone in the kitchen needs anything from me.

Reaching the top of the stairs, I head straight for my desk, where the most current version of my manuscript lies binder-clipped together. Behind me, I can hear Sora looking around, checking out the bathroom and then coming back into the main room.

"So this is your room," he says slowly. I nod, unclipping the manuscript to put the pages in order.

Sora cranks the skylight open and sticks his head out, hoisting himself up on his arms to look out at the neighborhood.

"I thought you said your house was on the water," he says critically, dropping down again.

I pause to look up at him. "It's three blocks away. Close enough."

"You said _on_."

I roll my eyes. "Shut the window, you're letting all the heat out."

He does, and I go back to my pages – I'm not too bothered by him poking around my room. I don't really have much to hide, and it's not like we'll be here too long anyway.

"Okay," I say, clipping the now-ordered pages together. "Here it is, but you have to remember it's not _done_ yet, I'm still editing it, but I mean, it's pretty close to done, but-"

"Chill out."

Sora's standing _right_ behind me, and when I turn around, I practically crash into him. The closeness sends a shiver down my spine, and I take a step back, handing him the papers. "Okay. Fine. But I need that back. You know, soon."

_Stop crushing on Kairi's guy_. _Stop now._

We head out soon after that, hoping not to make Kairi too angry by our prolonged absence. It took a lot longer to walk to my place than I thought it would, and by the time we get back to her apartment, the food is ready.

We eat a lot, between the three of us, and we put on Christmas music and we drink wine. After dinner, I give Kairi her present, a fancy perfume I know she's been coveting, and she gives me a collection of Faulkner stories I've been renewing from the library for months. She and Sora apparently exchanged gifts in the morning before I came over, and Sora and I agreed beforehand not to do the present thing since honestly, neither of us knows the other well enough to have any idea what to get for them.

Kairi puts on her new perfume and we open another bottle of wine. We watch something Christmas-y on TV, drink more, and snow continues to fall outside. It's getting late, and now Sora and Kairi are dancing slow and drunk in the living room and I'm in the kitchen putting dishes from dinner in the dishwasher. I do this for a while, until all the dishes are either in the dishwasher or on the drying rack next to the sink, clean. I can hear Kairi's giggling and Sora's deeper laugh, and over the melting candles on the kitchen table I can see them doing less dancing and more kissing. I'm thinking maybe it's time for me to leave, so I put my shoes on, and I grab my jacket before going into the living room.

"I should probably head home," I say awkwardly, waiting for them to notice me. Kairi pulls back, and Sora laughs and stretches a little, cheeks flushed with wine and Christmas and Kairi.

"_Noo_ooo," Kairi protests, putting her hand on my shoulder. "No, Riku, don't leave! I thought you were gonna stay!"

"Well, Axel called me, and he said they were hoping I'd be there tonight too, you know, Christmas with the roomies," I lie, shrugging.

"I thought you did that last night," she replies, pouting.

"That was Christmas _Eve_. This is just, um, regular Christmas. But hey, there's gonna be a big, fancy kind of New Year's party at our place, Axel and Roxas are doing it, a bunch of people are gonna be there, and you guys should come. It's like last year - Kairi, you remember, right?"

She nods, still pouting. "Fiiiiine," she says, letting go of Sora to wrap her arms around me instead. "Well, be safe, do you want a cab? Do cabs run tonight? Sora, are there cabs outside?"

"I can walk," I assure her. "It's not too far, and it's Christmas, I'll be fine. You guys have a good night, okay?"

She kisses my cheek, and I kiss hers. Then Sora approaches me, and I assumed I would just wave and nod at him but I guess he's coming to shake hands, which seems weirdly formal to me. He hugs me instead, a one-armed, drunken man-to-man hug, and I sigh in relief.

"Merry Christmas, man," he says, pulling back.

"Merry Christmas," I reply. "Goodnight, I'll see you guys soon."

It's not snowing anymore on the walk home, but no one's come by yet to disrupt the snow on the ground, so my footprints are the first. Smiling grimly, I prepare myself for a long night of Faulkner.


	5. The Calm Before The Storm

**Warning: Mildly explicit content, wildly explicit language.**

* * *

I walk home on Christmas, though technically it's the 26th by that time, and as I open the front door of the house, Faulkner in hand, I wonder again what it is that Sora won't tell me. I'm contemplating the option of a love affair with a teacher gone sour when I first hear it – the unmistakable sound of a sex-moan coming from the living room. Stopped in my tracks in the front hallway, I wonder if there's any way I can sneak past whoever's fucking on the couch to get to my room without disturbing the action, but there's really no foreseeable way, and I'm sure as hell not going to spend the night in the kitchen.

It's not the first time Axel's brought some corporate slut home. They're usually girls in slinky dresses and spiky heels, with the same shoulder-length professional haircut and the same personal trainer body. I edge closer to the archway, and what used to be a fifth of Jack Daniels comes into view on the coffee table. All I hear is heavy breathing, and I can't even believe how awkward it's going to be when he notices me, but I take a deep breath, bite the bullet, and turn the corner into the living room, hoping to speed through with as little interaction as possible.

And then I feel my eyes get wide, because there's something very different about Axel's slut du jour. Axel himself is in the same situation he always seems to be in when I sneak past his conquests in the public areas of our house; he's slouched back on the couch, shirt unbuttoned, tie loosened, eyes shut. I want to keep walking, I _need_ to keep walking, but I'm somehow paralyzed, frozen in place with my mouth hanging open.

It's Roxas who notices me, half-lidded eyes flickering up from where his mouth seems attached to Axel's neck, and then he's pushing back off of Axel, trying to stand up and stumbling a little.

"This isn't what it- this isn't, it's not what it looks like," he slurs, and I hold my hands up, shaking my head.

"I, uh, I'm just going upstairs," I choke out, avoiding Axel's eyes as he climbs off the couch, clearly furious.

"Shit! Axel, what the _fuck_ is this? You said it was fucking clear-"

"Don't worry," I say quickly, turning around at the doorway to the stairs. "I didn't see anything, okay? This never happened, I'm going upstairs, I'm gonna go to bed, goodnight, okay, goodbye."

This is certainly a new development. I've known Axel since I moved in here, and not once has he ever mentioned anything about liking men. It's also a little annoying, since it means my gaydar has been woefully ineffective all this time, and as I climb the stairs to my room, I honestly don't know what to think.

I'm halfway to my room when I hear the front door slam, and then the sound of Axel cursing loudly. By the time I reach the top of the stairs, I can hear Axel coming up, and I prepare myself mentally to be yelled at.

"Riku, are you up here?"

I open my mouth to respond, but he continues before I can. "Fucker, I know you're up here. The _light's_ on. And you just _came_ up here."

"I never said I wasn't here," I mutter, sitting down on the edge of my bed. "Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt anything, I was just trying to come home."

He takes one last heavy step at the top of the stairs, approaching the bed with a Go-On-And-Try-To-Hit-Me sort of swagger. "Roxas and I," he begins, zipping up his pants, "Roxas- Roxas and I are _business_ partners."

"I know."

"We make ads."

I blink. "I know. Look, let's just forget this ever happened, okay? Just go to bed, Axel."

"I will not."

Ahh, fuck. What a Christmas, huh? I grit my teeth, waiting for Axel to say something.

After another minute of glaring at me, his expression changes to one of mild distrust.

"You're gay," he says finally. "You're definitely gay."

I don't even know what to say to this, so I stay silent, meeting his gaze with an equally caustic one of my own.

"I'm not gay," he continues. "But I want to fuck Roxas."

"Great. That's great. Okay. Goodnight."

"No, that's not- that's not true," he says, narrowing his eyes. "I'm not gay, but I don't wanna fuck Roxas. I wanna have sex with Roxas. No, that's not right either. I want to sleep with Roxas."

I raise my eyebrows. "Pretty sure it's all the same, buddy."

"Not at _all_!" he protests, clearly more worked up now. Again, I don't know what to say, so I sit on my bed and nod at him. He pauses, clearly thinking, then continues. "How do you do it? I mean- how do you sleep with guys?"

"Are you _serious_?"

Seeing my expression of horrified disbelief, he narrows his eyes, gesturing widely as he tries to correct himself. "Not like _that_, dickweed! I know you do it up the back. I mean, how do you- how do you get them to want it?"

"Go to sleep, Axel."

"What the _fuck_ am I supposed to do?" he bursts out, running a hand anxiously through his hair. "Two years ago, when we made the deal with the-with the diamond people, we were celebrating, and he kissed me. He fucking _kissed_ me. Or I kissed him. We had a fucking _saliva exchange_, I don't fucking know. And we never talked about it. Did you know that? _Two fucking years_, and we _never_ talked about it. And now it's Christmas, and we're fucking trashed, I'm so- Riku, I am so fucking drunk right now."

"Oh, I can tell, don't worry."

"I am _so fucking drunk_. And I kissed him, I'll admit it!" he rasps, throwing his hands up. "I'll fucking admit it, I was the one that kissed him. But _he_ was the one that fuckin', fuckin' pushed me back on the couch and- and, I don't even- I don't even- ughhh. And then _you_ come in and fucking- he fuckin'- you know what he fuckin' said? He goes, he goes 'I can't do this.' _I can't motherfucking do this_. And he leaves. He _left_."

Axel goes silent, and I still don't know what to say, so I tell him I'm sorry because he looks completely distraught at this point.

"Don't be," he replies. "I don't- I dunno how to… What the fuck am I supposed to say to him tomorrow?"

I'm struck suddenly by how pitiful he is, standing in front of me in my room, red spikes brushing the sloping ceiling. His shirt is still unbuttoned and he seems to be trying with little success to untie his tie. With a thin smile, I stand up, reaching out to untie the tie for him, and his hands drop heavily to his sides. I straighten it out, then fold it in half and hand it back to him.

"Do you love him?" I ask, resting a hand on his shoulder.

He looks lost for a moment, eyes searching the space just past me for an answer.

"He gets me," he says finally.

"Do you love him?" I repeat, catching his eye and holding contact.

"I don't fucking know!" he explodes, shaking his shoulder free from my grip. "Fuck. Fuck!"

"You swear a lot when you're drunk," I remark, taking a step back. "Look, it's not my issue. But if you love him, and you think you have a fighting chance, which, judging by what I saw before, I'd say you do, then… knowing the way you two think? Challenge him. Dare him to kiss you. And when he does – because believe me, he'll do it – when he does, you kiss him back with everything you've got, and you tell him exactly how you feel about him, and if you're lucky, he'll tell you something very similar in return."

Axel says nothing, so I shrug. "That's all I got. That's my best idea. And now I'm tired, and so are you, and you should go get some sleep."

"Look, don't- don't tell anyone about this."

"Axel, what kind of friend do you think I am?"

He shakes his head, then gives me a lopsided grin and a one-armed hug, much like the one Sora gave me earlier. "Merry Christmas," he mumbles, and he stumbles off down the stairs.

Sinking down onto my bed again, I slowly strip away layers of clothing until I'm left in just my boxers, sprawled out on top of my covers, completely exhausted.

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Ready to jump again? Good.

On December 30th of last year, two notable events occur:

I finish my first novel, _Expatriate_. At the time, I'm unaware that anyone will ever have any interest in it, but all the same, at 11:42 PM on December 30th, I hit Control+S and save my final edits. Granted, they don't turn out to be the ultimate final edits, but they'll be the last edits I do on it before it gets picked up. For lack of any better way to put this, this moment fucking rocks.

At 11:56, I hit send on the email I'm sending to my agent, I climb into bed, and I fall asleep weirdly quickly. At what I assume must have been roughly 11:58, the first awkward Sora dream commences.

Part of me wants to leave out the awkward Sora dreams, but the part of me that has no shame is convinced that in order to properly use this manuscript as a therapeutic processing method, (yes, I went there), I have to include it all. Hell, I can always take out the parts I don't like later, can't I? Whatever.

So this isn't exactly the first dream I've _ever_ had about Sora, because he was definitely a guest star in that one drunken hookah dream I had, the one on the first night we hung out. However, this dream isn't even in the same fucking category as that dream. This is one of _those _dreams. The kind that feels real, _really_ real, so real that you wake up with your shirt pushed up, one hand on your chest and the other in your shorts, and you're either rock solid hard or already sticky. You wake up sweaty, but not in a feverish, sick way or a clammy, nightmarish way. Essentially, you wake up in exactly the state you'd be after collapsing onto your bed following fantastic, clingy, wet, hot, completely uncivilized sex, except unlike in that situation, you don't need a 20 minute rest period before you're ready to go again.

In the dream, Sora shows up at my place in athletic shorts, a wifebeater, and his ridiculous new shoes. Apparently we'd planned to go for a run together, which is completely absurd on about six different levels, but I guess it goes to show that anything's possible in your dreams. So we set out running, and instead of the usual dream-run, you know, where it feels like you're running through waist-deep sand, I'm actually jogging along at a pretty good pace. Dream absurdity number two is our running conversation, which I don't even remember anymore except that it was completely out there, but seemed totally normal at the time. We seem to run for an eternity, and by the time we finally arrive back at my place, both of our shirts have (conveniently) disappeared and we're dripping in sweat. Sora asks if he can use my shower, and I say yes, of course, and this is when it starts going down the porno route. Sora mysteriously can't figure out how to turn on my shower, so he asks me to come turn it on for him, but then he says he doesn't want my clothes to get wet, so obviously I have to get naked to come turn the shower on for him. And then we're both standing there, and gazillion-degree water is raining down on us, and Sora starts to soap up in the most sexually suggestive way I can possibly imagine. I start to freak out and leave, but he tells me to stay, and how can I say no to him? He's soaking wet, and it's hot and steamy, and the water's beading up on his sweaty, slick muscles, and part of me in the back of my head knows it's just a dream, so yeah, I fucking go for it.

On December 31st, I wake up, as previously mentioned, with my shirt pushed up to my armpits, one hand on my chest and the other in my shorts. I'm so hard it hurts, and my whole body is just a little bit sweaty. I wake up because my phone is ringing, and instantly I have to decide between dream-Sora, who's dripping wet and wants my cock, and real-Sora, whose name is flashing on my cell phone.

I let out an exhausted groan and reach for the phone.

"What's up?" I sigh, closing my eyes.

"Oh, sorry man, did I wake you up?"

"Nnhh, it's fine, I should get up anyway."

"Oh. Okay. I was just wondering if your roommates are expecting us to bring anything to the party tonight. Kairi was thinking maybe we should make a cake or something, or bring champagne. Or something."

I can't believe I forfeited that dream for this inane question.

"I dunno," I mumble. "You don't have to bring anything, but if you want to, it's cool. Either way."

"Okay. And Kai wants me to ask you how dressy it is."

_Kai? Right, Kairi. Ugh. _

"Ahh… Uh, hang on a sec," I manage, wincing. My foot has fallen asleep – all of the blood flow in the lower half of my body is routing to one spot, and standing up is going to be awful, I just know it.

I stretch my arms, rub my eyes, and swing my legs out of bed with another groan.

"It's kinda semi-dressy," I say finally, with a sigh. "Tell her it's just like last year. You guys don't have to really dress up or anything, but like, I dunno, wear a shirt with buttons."

"Gotcha."

"Tell her to wear, ah, tell her to wear the black dress, the strapless one. And if she protests, tell her it makes her ass look good."

Sora laughs.

"It does," I add. "So you won't be, uh, you won't be lying or anything."

He laughs again, and I wonder if I should go the cold shower route or just give in.

"Alright, I'll see you tonight," he says.

"Mm." I hang up and lie back on the bed, decision made. Forcing Kairi out of my mind, I close my eyes and flashback on Sora's face, Sora's wet hair plastered against his cheek, Sora's blue eyes behind waterlogged eyelashes, Sora's rough hands pulling my face to his, Sora's tongue pressing urgently into my mouth, and it's been maybe 30 seconds but my eyes squeeze shut tighter and I stop breathing and then it's all over, and I finally exhale a pathetic little moan of defeat.

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Seeing Sora and Kairi that night isn't nearly as awkward as it should be. Though why should it be, really? Having a sex dream about somebody doesn't mean you spend every second lusting after them (which is not to say I don't spend any time on New Year's lusting after Sora), and anyway, what fun is a party if you spend the whole time pining?

It's getting close to midnight, and Kairi and I are dancing. Sora's inside somewhere, probably still in the kitchen, engrossed in conversation with Demyx, and Kairi and I have ducked out to the back porch, where we've decided to have one New Year's dance between us. It's a little cold, but both of us have a healthy champagne flush at this point, and out here is the only place we can really get a little peace and quiet.

Kairi sighs, leaning into me with the muffled music from the other side of the sliding door.

"Can you believe it's already New Year's?" she says wistfully. "It's like… every year just goes by so fast now."

I nod, pushing her out to twirl. "We're certainly not getting any younger."

She makes a face at me, placing her hand back onto my shoulder. "But this year hasn't been so bad, has it?"

"We only got in what, two fights?"

She laughs and shoves me a little bit, rolling her eyes. "As if either of them was _my_ fault!"

"And I suppose it's all mine, then?" I ask, grinning.

"Well you can be quite a character sometimes, you have to admit!"

"I don't even know what that's supposed to mean."

She smiles, and over her shoulder I see Sora taking a shot inside with Axel and Demyx.

"I _mean_, you can be a real jerk sometimes!"

"Crazy bitch," I mutter, returning the smile.

"Gray-haired old man."

"Cum-guzzling dumpster slut."

"Insufferable manwhore."

"Uhhh, fag hag," I say, and I know I totally won, because her insults weren't even that good anyway. I mean really, insulting my _hair_?

"Hey now," she retorts, (yeah, I definitely won), and when she giggles it makes me think of champagne bubbles.

Someone inside is changing the music to some kind of rap, and our classy slow-dance abruptly ends. Kairi looks at me for a minute, then slowly wraps her arms around my neck, hugging me tight.

"You know, for all the times you act like a jerk," she says, voice muffled in my shoulder, "You're still the best friend I've ever had, and I don't know what I'd ever do without you, Riku Walker."

I sigh, hugging her back, and I know exactly how she feels. "What was my life before I knew you?" I reply, as always, riding the edge of sarcasm and sincerity.

"Nothing, obviously," she says, and we break apart, laughing again. After another moment, she gestures toward the snow-capped lawn furniture. "Brush off that snow, buddy! I want to sit down."

"On a wet lawn chair? In the freezing cold?"

"But we have to recap the _year_," she whines, and grumbling, I give in and lay my jacket down on the chair for us to sit on.

"Okay," she says, straightening out her dress. "January."

"January," I repeat. "I don't even fucking remember."

"Language, Riku!"

"I don't even freaking remember."

"Much better. Actually no, not better at all, because you don't remember the fiasco at the mall! And I thought that that was a classic Riku and Kairi moment for the ages!" she exclaims, hands on hips.

"Oh God, what was his name? The security guard, he had some horrible name, what was it?"

"Diesel," she chokes out, giggling uncontrollably again.

Last January, we were almost kicked out of a shopping mall when Kairi, 25-going-on-6, chased me around Macy's with a lacy bra.

"Diesel," I say, nodding. "Born to be a rent-a-cop."

"Can we name our firstborn after him?" she asks, and I'm thinking of all the things wrong with that question when Sora slides open the door behind us.

"What's up, ladies?"

"You're drunk," Kairi observes, nudging his knee with her high-heeled foot.

"I am no such thing," he replies, exaggerating an expression of pure personal affront.

Looking back, it's starting to sound like all anyone in my life ever does is get drunk. On the one hand, this is not true at all. There just happen to have been a lot of holidays in rapid succession. On the other hand, I'm trying to remember what people used as social lubricant before we could all just get smashed and laugh at each other? How did we ever celebrate anything? I have no fucking idea.

Reaching down, Sora tips Kairi's chin up to look her in the eye. "If anyone here is drunk right now, it's you, lady! Sitting out here in the cold."

"Am not!"

"Little Miss Red-Eyes," he says, and his voice is getting that sexy sort of exhausted edge to it. I flash back for a fleeting moment on that magnificent, wonderful dream, then panic and think about slugs to keep myself from getting a hard-on. Slugs? Really? I know.

"They're about to count down inside," he continues, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "So I figured I should find my midnight kiss and get ready."

Kairi says something, I'm not really listening anymore, and the three of us head back into the living room, which is already too crowded and completely saturated with expensive perfume and diamond jewelry and other things that Axel and Roxas's cohorts tend to come with.

Then I hear them starting to count down from ten, and I have nobody to kiss, so I lean against the doorway to the back hallway. It's then that I hear Axel's voice, from around the corner by the kitchen, and I look up to see a slightly distorted reflection of him in the hallway window.

_Ten. Nine. Eight._

"-that you… you mean more to me than anything in the fucking world-"

_Seven. Six._

"-I never thought I'd be saying this, but I think-"

_Five. Four. Three._

"-I think that, I mean… Roxas, I-"

_Two._

"-love you."

_One._

Everything and nothing is here, now. I'm standing in a doorway, leaning back against the dark, wooden frame. To my right is a cheering crowd. Kairi and Sora must be somewhere in there, lips pressed together, ringing in the new year together. And to my left is a window, a thick, distorted glass reflection of Axel's hair, and Axel's hands pulling Roxas's face to his own. I feel for a moment as though all of this ought to mean something, anything more than what it does mean, which is to say, nothing. I feel like I ought to feel more of one thing or another, but instead of trying to do so, I just listen.

"Roxas, I love you. I'm in love with you. I've _been_ in love with you. I-mm…"

Then, from the other side:

"Riku, get in here!"

And I'm swept up into the crowd. It's a new year, and in that moment, nothing is quite perfect, but everything is alright, and alright is pretty damn good, ain't it?

Two weeks later, Kairi is up at her parents' place celebrating her birthday, and I get a phone call from my agent telling me that miraculously, someone actually wants to publish my book.


	6. Congratulations

**Warning: Adult Content**

* * *

"Okay. Yeah. Okay, bye."

I'm sitting on the couch, and I'm blinking, and I'm chewing on a semi-thawed frozen strawberry, having just gotten off the phone with my agent.

It's January 14th, and Kairi is at her parents' place for her birthday, which was yesterday. The idea of yesterday is hard to fathom right now, though – I'm overcome with an emotion I don't know a word for. Relief? Elation? Success? I have no idea, but someone wants to put my book in a cover and sell it, and that means I might actually be a real live writer. Or something.

Anyway, the first person I call is Kairi. She picks up the phone after 6 rings, exhaling a breathless hello at the last second.

"Kai, it's Riku."

"Yeah! I saw! What's up?"

"I, ah, Robbie just called."

"Robbie?" she says, then, aside: "No, hang on, I'm talking to Riku. I'll be there in a sec, okay? Oh, Riku, can you hold on a second?"

I wait, popping another strawberry into my mouth and settling back on the couch. I stare at the ceiling.

"Okay. I'm back. Robbie, like, your agent Robbie?"

"Uh huh."

"…and? Ohmygosh, did someone pick up your book?"

I nod and grin, and then I realize she can't see me. "Yeah."

She squeals in excitement, and I laugh a little. "Oh my _God_, I'm so proud of you! That's _amazing_! How long has it even been since you finished it?! I mean, that's really quick, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Like, unspeakably quick. Unimaginably quick. I'm kind of in shock," I admit, nodding a hello to Demyx, who's appeared in the doorway from the kitchen.

"Okay. Okay. Well are you gonna celebrate? You should go out tonight, do something fun! And we are _definitely_ celebrating as soon as I get back, too."

Demyx is standing around awkwardly, clearly waiting for me to get off the phone.

"I dunno," I say. "After the holidays, I'm kinda partied out. I'll probably just rent Scarface and kick back at home. Maybe I'll get one of the guys to watch it with me. I dunno."

"Um, _no_."

"No?"

"Call Sora!" she says brightly. When I protest, she continues. "Oh, come on. He's your friend too! You guys should go have fun! Plus, then you can tell me if he flirts with other girls at the bars when I'm not there!"

I choke on my strawberry. "Are you serious?" I ask, but she's already laughing, and I know she's at least 60 percent joking.

"Of course not," she replies eventually. "But I gotta go, my mom's waiting for me. But I'm so happy for you! Oh my gosh! Call me later, okay? And _please_ tell me you'll do something fun to celebrate!"

"Yeah, yeah, alright, alright. I'll call you later. Bye."

As soon as I flip my phone shut, Demyx finally approaches the couch.

"Did I hear you say your book got picked up?"

And it goes on like this all afternoon. Demyx congratulates me by offering to cook me lunch, and when Axel stops by around 8 in the evening, he hands me his credit card and tells me to go buy something nice for myself. It's at that moment that the doorbell rings, and when I wrench the front door open, I find myself face to face with Sora, who looks both freezing cold and undeniably hot, a sort of windswept, just-short-of-frostbitten kind of sexy.

"Uh, hey," is all I can manage; I'm caught off guard. "You look… cold. What's going on?"

"Kairi called me," he explains, tromping his wet shoes inside onto the nice floor. "Congratulations, man! I'm taking you out to celebrate!"

I groan, shutting the door gently behind him. "I should have known she would call you. I mean, not that I don't want to hang out with you, I just, uh, I just felt like being kinda low-key, you know? After the holidays and all."

He nods. "Low-key, I gotcha. I can do low-key. But go put some clothes on, because I swear if I don't at least send Kairi one picture of us at a bar tonight, she'll kick my ass."

I look down at myself. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

I guess the rumpled jeans and solid-color tee look went out of style with unemployment. Sora's certainly going to one-up me no matter what I wear. He's got that leather jacket on again, the one with the hood, and gray jeans, and God, I don't even want to go into it. _Fine_, I think, _Maybe I'll go change_.

"C'mon," he says. "You're gonna look good tonight. You are not leaving that bar without a man."

"What if I leave with you?" I mutter, gesturing for him to follow me upstairs.

"I don't count," he replies, and I'm embarrassed that he actually heard me.

Up in my room, he's messing with my TV and I'm going through my drawers in search of something acceptable to wear.

"Look," I say eventually. "I'm older than you. I don't want to dress like it's my 21st birthday. I'm too old to wear the clothes you wear. If I dressed like you, it'd just be pathetic."

He looks up from the TV, making a face at me. "Man, shut up and put on a fitted shirt so we can go! You've got 4 years to go till you hit 30, so quit acting like you're old!"

Grumbling, I pull out a black t-shirt and switch it with the green one I'd been wearing. I find a decent pair of jeans and, as I stand in front of the mirror zipping them up, I wonder if I need a haircut. I never know what to do with it anymore.

Then Sora appears in the mirror behind me, looking me up and down once before pronouncing me acceptable. Relieved, I throw on my coat, and we head out.

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Axel's super-diamond-platinum-whatever credit card comes in handy at the bar, where we immediately open up a tab for the night.

Then we're three drinks deep, and Sora's pointing out guys he wants me to hit on.

"That guy," he says, jerking his head not-so-subtly toward a guy further down the bar. I lean forward to check him out; he looks barely old enough to be in the bar, and about 20 times more athletic than I am. I grimace, then shake my head.

Sora sighs. This is the third guy I've vetoed. "Why? What's wrong with him?"

"He's not my type," I reply.

"What _is _your type?" he asks, frustrated.

I shrug. "I dunno, not him. He's probably closet-straight anyway, look at him!"

Sora coughs a little, having made the mistake of laughing while swallowing liquor. "Closet straight," he chokes out, grinning. "Whatever. What about… that guy, over there. Blonde guy. Very Zac Efron."

I follow his eyes to a guy who I'd describe as more surfer-ish than Zac Efron, but after studying him for a moment I see what Sora means. He reminds me a little of Roxas, though that could just be the alcohol talking, and he's not half bad-looking.

"I dunno. Sure. He looks fine enough, anyway."

"Okay. So go talk to him," Sora says, draining his drink. "I can wait."

I shake my head again. "Nah, I'm good."

"Will you go? Please?"

"What, are you trying to get rid of me?" I ask, mock-offended. Though at this point I'm starting to wonder a little bit.

"No, I'm trying to get you _laid_," he says, shoving me playfully.

I laugh and order us another round out of Axel's pocket. He _did_ tell me to buy myself something nice, so an enormous bar tab will probably end up being in his acceptable price range.

"Look," I say, taking my first sip. I wonder how to say this without revealing the fact that I have kind of a crush on him. Then I gulp down half my Jack and Coke and turn to him. "I don't wanna get laid. I'd rather just… hang out with you tonight."

And then I'm stuck, completely stuck in his ocean-blue eyes and his summer-tan skin and his terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad, messy-on-purpose hair. He's still looking at me after what feels like forever, and finally he smiles. "Alright," he says. "But will you at least tell Kairi I tried? She'll kill me otherwise!"

And now I laugh, relieved that he didn't catch on, and I drink the other half of the drink I just ordered and decide it's time for us to switch to tequila shots.

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We stumble into Sora's apartment at something like 4 in the morning, and the second we burst through the door I feel like I'm home. Everything smells like him, like brown sugar and whatever laundry soap he uses, the cologne he uses, the Old Spice body wash he uses. He's fumbling for the light switch on the wall, and for a moment all I can see is the glow-in-the-dark stars on the living room wall. I'm weirdly enthralled by them and almost disappointed when he finds the switch, the dim light from the lamp on the end table overpowering their neon green glow.

"Home sweet home," he says, shedding his jacket and shoes onto the floor by the door. "Oh, can you lock it?"

I do, though it takes me longer than it should, and by the time I drop my coat and shoes next to his, he's in the kitchen, getting a glass of water. I hear him curse and turn the water off, and as I approach him to see what's wrong, I see that he's spilled his water all over the floor. Reaching for the paper towels, I get down on my knees beside him to help clean it up.

Despite my assurance to myself that I wouldn't get too drunk, I would seem to be pretty damn trashed. This is actually kind of disappointing – after spending so much time drunk around the holidays, I told myself I'd lay off and give my liver a break for a few months. I lasted two weeks, and now, sitting on the kitchen floor next to Sora, all I want to do is lick the tequila residue off of his teeth and then maybe pass out. Looking at him really doesn't help, so I watch the water soaking through the paper towels in front of us instead.

"Capillary action," he says hoarsely, eyes glued to the mess.

"Huh?"

"Capillary action," he says again, looking up. "Is why the water goes into the paper towel."

"Oh," I say. "Okay."

Then he starts to laugh, trying to mop up more water than the paper towels can hold, and he gives up, dropping the sopping wet mass back onto the floor and leaning back against the cabinet below the sink.

"You must think I'm crazy," he wheezes, resting his head back against the cabinet door.

"Only a little."

"Okay, okay, capillary action is like, okay, you know water molecules? H20. Water."

"Uh huh."

"Okay so, the water molecules, they're more attracted to the paper towel molecules than they are to each other. So they go into the paper towel, in between the molecules," he explains, attempting to accompany the explanation with interpretive hand gestures. "That's capillary action."

"Okay, Bill Nye."

"No," he protests, waving his hands in my face. "No, it's cool! It's cool, because capillary action is like how trees eat water. And, um, nutrients. From the ground. Because, um, it goes up."

"I think maybe you had too much to drink," I slur, moving to sit beside him against the cabinet. We stare at the table in front of us, our feet. I look up, and the ceiling seems much too far away. _Probably because you're sitting on the floor, dipshit_. Yeah, okay.

"No," Sora says again. "It's true, and it's totally fucking awesome. Like, if you put a really thin tube into some water, the water goes up, it goes up the sides of the tube, because of capillary action. It's the same concept as the paper towel, the water- the water molecules wanna be with the tube molecules more than they wanna be with each other, and so they-they _defy gravity_ to do so. It's really simple chem stuff. You learn it in like, 5th grade."

"You're…"

I start to say something, but after "you're" I can't remember what I was going to say he was, so I just trail off and stare at him some more. This time he's staring back, and in the dim light shining over from the living room, I kind of think he's the most amazing thing I've ever seen, sitting piss drunk on the kitchen floor and trying to explain simple chemistry concepts to me. I look at him, and he's not just Sora, he's… summer. He's the sun rising over the ocean, he's the way you feel lying in bed, listening to cicadas outside at night, he's saltwater taffy and woodsmoke and the way the world feels outside after a thunderstorm when it's 80 degrees. He's caramel and honey and cinnamon and he's _Kairi's boyfriend_, I think suddenly. The realization hits me like a cinder block to the face, but before I can really process it, he's talking again, and I shove it to the back of my mind in favor of listening to his husky voice instead.

"Remember how I told you about my family?" he asks disjointedly, looking down.

"Yeah," I say.

"Remember how I said I had a little sister?"

"In the Air Force, right?"

He nods.

For a moment, neither of us speaks, and I wonder why he's bringing this up.

"In the Air Force," he repeats, looking down with a half-smile. "Yeah, Janie and I were always really close growing up. We, um, we were both really into planes and stuff. Flying. Anything to do with flying."

"You're not close anymore? What, you got in a fight?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "No, we didn't get in a fight."

Again, we're both silent, and this time I feel like I'm really missing something.

"Janie died two years ago on Sunday," he says finally, and now I feel like there's a cold, heavy rock settling in my stomach.

"I-I'm sorry," I stammer, totally unsure of what to say.

"She was only a year younger than me," he continues, looking up at me. "We always, I mean, we always wanted to fly. And so she did, she went to the Air Force, and I went to school. I was gonna, we always wanted, as kids, we always planned that- I was- I was gonna design flying cars and jetpacks and shit, just dumb, stupid shit like that, but then we got older, and I really- I really _wanted_ to, you know? I wanted to know how to fly."

I try to swallow the lump in my throat but it won't seem to go away.

"And I was just a few months short of graduation when it happened. I mean, I finished, but… it just wasn't the same without Jane, you know?"

"Yeah," I lie. I don't know. I have no idea.

"Her plane went down over the ocean. It was some kind of prototype, and the whole thing was too computerized, too complex. One little part didn't work and the whole thing just shut off."

He stops then, and I realize in the silence that this is what he wasn't ready to tell me before.

"That's why you aren't a rocket scientist," I say lamely, and I wish to hell I weren't so drunk for this conversation. Then again, I think, would the conversation even be happening if we weren't both totally wasted?

"We're not meant to fly," he says quietly, and he looks up at me with an expression so utterly lost that I swear I feel my heart break for him in my chest.

"Sora," I begin, but again, I trail off. All I can think is that I want to kiss him, I want to hold him close to me and make it better.

He stares for a moment at the chair legs in front of us, then suddenly appears to be done with the topic, shaking his head a little.

"I dunno," he says quickly, energy returned. "God, what a buzzkill. I'm sorry. I just thought you should know. Shit, I dunno, I must be the worst celebration buddy ever. Like, congratulations on your book, by the way, my sister's dead!"

"No, it's- I'm glad you told me," I say, watching him get to his feet. Slowly, I attempt to stand up as well. "I'm really sorry. That she… passed away."

He shrugs, stumbling to another cabinet and pulling out a fifth of something – what, I can't yet tell. "It is what it is," he says, "I keep her right here, y'know, maybe that's cheesy, I dunno, but I keep her in my heart all the time. But after what happened, it was like, I just couldn't go back to airplanes, you know? Just can't do it. So now you know, that's why I work at the Happy Duke, that's why I'm wasting my education on a minimum wage coffee job, that's why, that's why. Go siddown, I'm gonna make you a drink."

"I-I dunno if that's a good idea," I start to say, but he cuts me off, pushing me into the living room with a bottle of sickly-sweet coconut Malibu rum, something I used to drink when I wasn't really used to liquor.

"Don't argue with me," he says, and he grins when he pushes me down onto the couch. "Drinking is what I do. It's in my blood, remember?"

"I'm part Irish… still know my limits," I grumble, relaxing against the couch cushions and taking in the past few minutes, the familiar room, the heat from the radiator.

"Hey now," he says, and I can't imagine how enough time has passed for him to make any kind of drink, but there he is setting one down in front of me, and one for himself. "I know my limits, and I haven't reached them tonight."

"Well," I say, taking a slow sip of what tastes like pure Hawaii. "You reached the Telling Personal Info limit, obviously."

He laughs. "Yeah, whatever. I drink a lot but I'm not a drunk."

"And if you were a drunk, you'd be a charming one," I say, adopting the Fuck It attitude of the wildly intoxicated. Kairi is so far from my mind right now that if someone were to say her name to me it would actually take me a minute to remember who she is.

I'm slumped back a little, my ass is too far forward on the couch cushion so I have to lean back a considerable distance before my back hits the seatback. Sora's sitting next to me, close, and you're damn right I take note that he didn't sit at the other end of the couch. He's kind of sideways, facing me, with one leg resting on the couch and the other foot on the floor. I can tell he caught my comment because of the way he's looking at me, but he doesn't address it. Not directly, anyway.

"What _is_ your type, seriously?" he asks instead, taking a long sip off his drink.

"Ahhh, I dunno. Someone intelligent and hot," I say, unwilling to put any thought into the matter. "Male. Circumcised. Fuck, I dunno."

"So basically, you date yourself," he says, smirking.

"There you go, making assumptions," I reply. "Whoever said I was circumcised?"

He looks at me for a few seconds, and I look back at him, and he narrows his eyes, trying to read my expression. I take the opportunity to lean microscopically closer.

"You are," he says eventually.

"Wanna bet?"

He takes another gulp of whatever the fuck drink he made for us, then does a little combination cough-laugh.

"Oh chill, I'm kidding," I say, half-assing an excuse. "For the record, I am."

"I knew it!"

We laugh, and he looks down, obviously conflicted about something.

"You know, I hesitate to say this, because I- I'm really into Kairi, you know?"

_Fuck_. _Kairi._

"But fuck it, what harm is there in telling you? You weren't just Radiator Guy. At work."

I raise my eyebrows, tipping my glass up to finish off my drink. "Oh yeah? What was I?"

"Well, it sounds stupid. It sounds very high school."

"Does it look like I fucking care?"

"You were… Hot Writer Guy."

I blink, then let go of the last of my inhibitions and shoot him a knowing smile. "Yeah, well you were Fuck-Me Coffee Boy," I say, in the most suggestive tone I can muster, ignoring the fact that this is a complete lie, and I thought of it only just now in the deepest, darkest, drunkest recesses of my mind.

My heart is beating about a million times a second and I feel like it's way too hot in the room. My palms are sweating and I realize I'm staring at his hands instead of his face. When I look up, his swaying eyes are focused directly on mine, and he swallows the last of his drink before setting his empty glass on the table and leaning forward to kiss me.

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Sora's hands are tangled in my hair and his breath is hot and shallow on my neck. He's pushed me back against the armrest and I let my eyes fall closed as he pushes my shirt up, seemingly setting about to kiss every inch of my now-exposed chest. Even with my eyes closed, I feel a wave of severe dizziness set in, and as I sit up a little for him to pull my shirt completely off, I think I might pass out.

"Babe, take this off," I murmur, forcing my eyes open and tugging a little on his shirt. He takes a momentary break from me, then sits back, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose.

"Shit," he mutters, pushing his hair out of his face. "This is really happening, isn't it? _Shit_."

I sigh. "Look, this is a mistake," I say, pushing him off of me. I stand up shakily, holding my arms out to get my balance. "Forget it."

I look down at him then, catching his breath on the couch, and I watch him stare at me, taking in what used to be a pretty damn cut body, now just acceptably fit.

_I should work out more_, I think, and then, before I can reach my shirt, he's up and he's kissing me again, and this time I know I won't be able to stop it again.

_Fuck it,_ I think to myself. _I did my part. I gave him his chance for redemption, and he made his choice. This is completely justified. This is completely his fault_.

Except, you know, for the fact that while he may be cheating on his girlfriend, I'm still hooking up with my best friend's boyfriend, which is still completely fucked up.

"You know," he murmurs, in between kisses, "Kairi and I… haven't actually… had the conversation… about seeing… each other… exclusively… yet."

His hands feel amazing on me, anywhere on me, so long as his skin is touching mine.

"That's a flimsy, bullshit excuse and you know it," I growl, holding back some kind of moan in the back of my throat while he gently bites at the spot where my neck meets my shoulder. "Not – nngh – not that I, ah, care right now…"

I manage to get his shirt off in the first three steps we take toward the bedroom, and we pause in the doorway while I unbuckle his belt and unzip his pants. It's slightly comforting that he's just as sweaty as I am, though I'm pretty sure at this point my sweat is at least 80 proof. He lets out the sexiest little gasp when I slip my hand into his pants, and I let him writhe and moan against the doorframe for a little while while I work on getting him sufficiently hard.

For some reason, this makes me think back to my first time, how surprised I was to find that sex was really nothing like the pornos made it seem. And maybe that's part of what's so great about this night with Sora – we fuck in his previously unmade bed, underneath the airplane blueprint poster, and I kiss every one of his tattoos. Lubing up is never as sexy as you wish it would be, but then I'm lying back and he slips inside me and suddenly I'm trying to remember how to breathe.

It seems to last forever, though that's probably a result of the alcohol. When he finally comes, he makes the sexiest, most exhausted, most downright _spent_ face I've ever seen, and watching him finish in me sets me off too.

At this point, I think we're both more than ready to pass out. I glance up at the window above the bed, and the sky is that hazy kind of early morning color, where it still looks dark, but there's enough light outside to see everything. I don't even want to know what time it is. Sora drops the condom into the trash can beside his bed and collapses against me. We fall asleep draped across each other, covered in sweat and spit and cum.

The next morning is pure hell.


	7. Underwater

I wake up cold, and the instant I'm conscious I feel my mouth get real dry, you know, the way it feels moments before you puke your guts out. Ignoring the pounding in my head and the sunlight like daggers in my eyes (and the fact that I'm completely naked), I roll out of Sora's bed and vomit violently into the little trash can underneath the bedside table. This goes on for a minute or two, until I spit the last of the greenish bile into the trash and wipe my mouth on the back of my hand. I feel absolutely disgusting.

Sora moans and rolls over in bed, and out of the corner of my eye I see him pull the covers up over his shoulder.

Now my stomach is aching from throwing up, my throat's burning, and as I look down at myself I realize there's dried cum on my lower abs. _At least it's mine_, I think, though that's not really much comfort. Every pore of my body feels completely clogged with congealed sweat from last night, and my hair hangs greasy and messy around my face. I sniff a little and rub my eyes, wondering when the last time I had a hangover this bad was, and it slowly sinks in that the reason my vomit smells like tequila is probably because that's the main ingredient.

Half of me wants to climb back into the bed, where it's theoretically warm, and the other half of me is desperate for a shower. Then I remember that Kairi's coming home today, and I kind of want to throw up again. Fuck, I'm a horrible person, I'm a horrible friend.

Sora throws the covers off and rolls back to face me, irritated.

"What the _fuck_," he says, and I want to punch myself in the face for thinking his morning voice is sexy.

I glare at him instead and force myself to stand up. I'm reconsidering my self-diagnosis of Hungover and switching it to Still Kinda Drunk, and I really, really need to shower.

"Can I use your shower," I ask in monotone, and he squints at me from the bed for a few seconds before nodding. I shiver in the January air and shuffle, still naked, into the bathroom, where I lean my head back against the closed door behind me.

Fuck. _Fuck_. I bang my head against the door once, then wince and decide against further self-harm; my headache is already monstrous enough as it is. Then I turn on the shower as hot as it'll go and take world's longest piss while I wait for the water to get hot. I need to get clean, to wash away last night. I want every atom of his saliva off of my skin, or better yet, I want to scrub away the entire outer layer of my skin and start fresh.

_Or you could drown yourself in the bathtub, you backstabbing asshole_.

The water's so hot I think I might emerge with serious burns, but I'm pretty sure I deserve it, so I leave it how it is and soap up. As good as it feels to scrub away the sweat and cum and spit, I feel like using Sora's body wash almost defeats the purpose. I'll smell like him all day.

The bathroom fills with steam, and I finish washing, but I stay in the shower anyway, letting the water beat down on my face until it suddenly turns ice cold and I do a little shower dance trying to turn off the water without getting under it. I guess part of me was hoping the hot water would never run out, that I could just stay there long enough and this whole situation would fade away. No such luck. Seeing no other towel options, I grab the aging, navy blue towel that's hanging up on the rack, and after drying off a bit, I wrap it around my waist and open the sauna door to the outside world.

Sora's leaning against the wall in between the bedroom door and the bathroom door, wearing the same gray sweats he wore the first night I stayed over here. I wonder why he feels the need to sag them as low as possible when he's clearly got nothing on underneath – I can see the top half of his Mercury tattoo, a faint trail of dark hair, two distinct lines of muscle riding down his hips.

He looks tired, but that's about it – nowhere near as bad as I feel. _Asshole_. He looks up at me as I exit the bathroom.

"Sorry," he says, hooking his thumbs under the waistband of his sweats. "About last night."

I shrug in some vague attempt at playing it cool. "Don't apologize to me. Apologize to Kairi."

He looks suddenly alarmed. "You're gonna tell her?"

"Uh, well, yeah. I guess. Fuck, I dunno."

"Don't," he says quickly. "I'll tell her."

I raise my eyebrows, skeptical. "Will you actually? Because I'm not gonna lie to her. She's-"

"Your best friend, I know," he cuts in. "And she's my girlfriend."

For a moment, we're both silent, and I feel my hair stand on end in the winter cold. I wonder if the heat is even on.

"I should probably go," I say eventually, fingering the edge of my towel.

"Want breakfast?" he asks, jerking his head toward the kitchen. "Before you go."

I grimace, shaking my head. "I'll just throw it up. Are you seriously not hungover at all?"

"I don't get hangovers," he replies, rubbing his arms. "But look, don't leave yet. Just- just sit down for a minute."

Huh? This catches me off guard, so I follow his instructions, gingerly folding myself onto the couch in my towel. He flops down beside me, rubbing his temples, then doubles over, resting his elbows on his knees.

"What do I say to her?" he mumbles, head in hands.

I say nothing, mostly because I'm wondering the same thing.

"I guess, I mean… She's coming over tonight. I guess I'll just… I'll just tell her tonight, that I want to date her… exclusively. And then, um, and then she'll know that before tonight, we… weren't."

I snort. "That's a little underhanded, isn't it?"

"You don't understand," he says desperately. "I don't cheat on people. I just don't."

"Except for last night."

"No. No! Because- I mean, Kairi and I haven't even been together that long!"

"Close to a month," I remark, and this whole thing is way too stressful for me to deal with right now. I'm still a little buzzed, and my head feels like a hurricane.

"Look," I say. "Just do with it what you will, but do it tonight, and tell me what you're doing, and tell me when you're doing it. And from now on, you and I are never drinking together, ever."

"Alone together," he corrects me, and I guess that's acceptable.

Shaking my head, I sigh and look out the window. "I need to take a break from drinking anyway, just in general. It's starting to feel like I'm back in Stockholm."

"I thought you lived in Italy."

"I lived in a lot of places," I say shortly, and I feel my patience for Sora diminishing as my head threatens to implode. Sure he's hot, but right now he's also annoying me, and above all, he's ripping me and Kairi apart, and that pisses me off. No guy should be hot enough for that to be okay, and I can't believe I actually hooked up with him.

"Don't be like that," he says, shooting me a sideways glare. "This is just as much your fault as it is mine."

"You were obviously less drunk than I was," I retort. "And I tried to stop you."

"Oh, so now it's nonconsensual? That's fucking rich. What next, Riku, did I gag you with a rag full of chloroform and chain you to the bedpost?"

"I never said it was nonconsensual," I spit, staring pointedly out the window. "But clearly you don't remember when I stood up and told you to forget it, and that it was a _mistake_."

"Oh! Huh!" he says sarcastically. "I guess that would mean _you_ were the more sober one, wouldn't it? So then, this is _your_ fault for not actually stopping it when you obviously recognized that it was a mistake."

We glare daggers at each other for a moment, and I finally give up. "Fine. We take equal share of the blame."

Sora sighs, leaning his head back against the couch cushion. "Look, why don't we just… why don't we just keep what happened between us… between us."

"And not tell Kairi?"

"I'll tell Kairi that I slept with somebody. But I don't think she needs to know that that somebody was you."

I blink.

"It'll just hurt her," he says, closing his eyes. "It's never gonna happen again, right? So she doesn't need to know it was you."

I no longer have the energy to argue with him, and I don't really want to anyway. "Fine. Yeah. Whatever. Look, I have to go. I need to get out of here."

Sora watches me without a word as I stand up, collecting my clothing from various parts of the room. I don't look at him again before going into the bathroom to change, and when I come out, he hasn't moved.

Standing at the door, I sigh. "I'm sorry. Look… no hard feelings, okay? I'll just, I'll see you later. I'm sorry."

"Yeah," he says vaguely, and I close the door tightly before setting out on my own personal walk of shame.

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Upon arriving at home, I immediately strip off my clothes (they smell like the bar) and slip into a pair of plaid pajama pants I've had since before I dropped out of college. Collapsing into my bed, I fall asleep immediately, and when I wake up it's getting dark outside. I have three unread texts from Sora:

The first was sent shortly after I left, and reads: "any idea why theres a huge wad of wet papertowels on my kitchen floor? im afraid to touch it…"

Then, sent not long after the first: "nvm was just h2o. why the fuck its there i still hve no idea"

The third and final text appears to have been sent maybe a half hour before I woke up, and reads: "w kai now. told her want to date just her. shes stoked. told u itd be fine."

I flip my phone shut, set it back on my bedside table, and fall back asleep.

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The next few weeks I'm completely buried in work. All my years of slacking are apparently coming back to haunt me – they want my book out in September. This puts me into an absolute panic at first, because of course, my final edits weren't the _actual_ final edits, and now there's a complete shitstorm of revisions to be made. I remind myself that people make entire babies in nine months, and really that's plenty of time, except that I don't actually have the entire nine months to work on it, and it's already almost February, and so on, and so forth.

The upshot is that it's unbelievably easy to avoid alcohol when you're that busy. In fact, I hardly even have time to socialize at all until mid-February. I think I see Kairi twice and Sora once in that time, and I spend Valentine's Day hunched over my keyboard, frantically trying to finish off the last of this particular batch of edits.

I plan to sleep all day on the 15th, as it's my first real day of rest in a month, but Kairi wakes me up with a phone call at noon. Yawning, I manage to mash the phone against the side of my face and mumble some kind of greeting before it stops ringing.

"Baby, you sound _terrible_!" she exclaims, her voice piercing my cloudy consciousness. "Are you okay?"

"Mmmfine. Yeah. I was up really late last night finishing some… book crap. All done now. I have a week off."

"Seriously? I get you for a whole week?"

I laugh a little, then cough to clear all the nighttime junk out of my throat and roll over onto my back. "I feel like I haven't seen you in a really long time. It's been like… two weeks."

"You're telling me, buddy! Oh, Sora says hi, by the way."

"Hi Sora," I mumble, and I'm reminded that today marks exactly one month since we hooked up.

Not that I haven't thought about it since then. God knows I've thought about it. Even when I tried not to think about it, there were dreams. Ohhh yeah, there were definitely dreams. Insatiable, neverending, vastly enjoyable dreams – like before, except with a hefty side helping of guilt upon waking up that wasn't quite as bad before. You know, when the dreams weren't based on a true story.

"Today's our one month," Kairi says, and I snap back into the present.

"Yeah. That's cool. Even though it's kind of more like two. I mean, you guys started dating in December."

"Well yeah, but we had this whole, I dunno, this whole _conversation_. The day I got back from visiting my folks, actually! He was _so _sweet, ohmygod. Anyway, he gave me a bracelet for Valentine's Day, annnnd basically, he's the best boyfriend ever."

"That sounds… great. Hey, we should hang out though. You and me. I miss you. But I just woke up, so give me an hour or so to shower and everything," I say, pointedly changing the subject. "I mean, unless you're doing… anniversary stuff."

"Oh, no, not at all! We were gonna make a lasagna for dinner tonight over at Sora's place, but you should come!"

"Ahh… Sure. Yeah. I can come."

I figure if I agree to it before I can talk myself out of it, I'll be forced to go.

This turns out to be completely and utterly true. Come evening-time, I'm straightening out my shirt in front of the mirror, feeling absolutely helpless with a side of through-the-roof anxiety. Every fiber of my being wants me to call Kairi and cancel. Because it's not just her one month with Sora, it's mine too. Except for me, it's one month without Sora. One month since I got a bitter taste of what I could have had if I hadn't asked Kairi to come with me to Gaston's those few months ago.

This gets me thinking. And the thing is, at this point, I honestly don't know what I feel for Sora. I'm certainly attracted to him physically. He's pretty much the epitome of everything I've ever found attractive in a man; tan, fit, tattooed but not too tattooed, no piercings, a little bit shorter than me, and God _damn_, those _eyes_. But why is the idea of seeing him tonight so unbearably uncomfortable? I mean, aside from the whole betrayed-my-best-friend-for-him thing, which is essentially resolved (kind of), why am I standing in front of my mirror wondering if I should part my hair in a different spot?

I honestly have no idea. So I try out different ideas and consider my gut reactions. The idea of kissing Sora is definitely a welcome one, as is the idea of getting him in bed again. Then I think about dating him. You know, taking him out to dinner. It feels awkward just to think about it, so I think about going out for drinks with him, and that feels a whole lot more natural. Maybe because we've already done that. Maybe because somewhere way back in the devious, selfish part of my brain, the idea of getting drinks with Sora means getting drunk with Sora, which could theoretically mean getting naked with Sora. Again. Yeah, right. Keep dreaming, subconscious. I shake myself out of that train of thought and try to find more angles on the situation. I think about talking to Sora, just talking, and it seems comfortable enough. I remember distinctly thinking about how easy it was in the past, and I wonder if it still will be.

Then suddenly I'm flashing back to that night, to Sora on the kitchen floor, his hair falling over his face and his eyes staring not really at his knees but someplace much further away. I remember him telling me about Jane, and I remember the impulse that strangely, I didn't act on – the impulse that told me to wrap my arms around him and hold him close, to let him lay it all out on me and use me any way he could to take his pain away.

Then I think of his crooked smile and something tightens in my chest. I blink, then reach for my jacket with a sigh. There's snow falling soft and slow on the skylight, and I realize as I step purposefully down the stairs that yeah, I'm a grown-up now, and part of being a grown-up is learning some goddamn self control. I wave goodbye to Demyx in the living room and shut the front door behind me with a newfound clarity. Yeah, I want Sora, but it's time to be realistic. Sora's just a friend to me, and what happened that night was a fluke. I mean, that's just how it is, right? _Right_?

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Kairi answers the door at Sora's place, and as soon as I step inside, I'm nearly bowled over by how amazing the lasagna smells. Any anxiety I'd had kind of melts away, and I grin as she tackles me with a hug.

"You!" she cries, kissing me on the cheek. "Busy man, I've missed you!"

"What can I say, I'm not a bum anymore."

"Yeah, now you just work 16 hours a day for weeks at a time!" Sora calls from the kitchen. I nod a hello to him when he looks over his shoulder at me, and the second we make eye contact my well-constructed defenses begin to crumble.

"Well, either way, I hope you're ready for the best food of your _life_," Kairi announces, spreading her arms wide as she heads back into the kitchen. "Because… well. You're about to have it."

"Anti-climactic," I murmur, smirking at her. She smacks me on the arm before turning to check the lasagna. Sora pronounces it done, and after taking it out of the oven, he instructs us to let it cool a little bit while he runs out to the store to get a six-pack.

"I'm not drinking these days," I mention half-heartedly, and he raises an eyebrow at me before heading out the door.

"Really? Any particular reason?" Kairi asks, looking more concerned than I'm really comfortable with. _I shouldn't have brought it up_, I think. _Now I'll have to talk about it_.

I shrug. "Just… I was just drinking a lot before. Figured it'd be good to take a break. And I've lost a little weight since I stopped, so I figure it must be good for me."

"I thought you looked skinny," she says, poking at my stomach.

It's true, too – not that I really needed to lose much weight, but between sleepless nights spent working and cutting out binge drinking, some of the extra I'd been carting around has melted away. It's always nice to be able to see your muscles, and I'm thinking I'd kind of like to keep it this way.

"Don't go manorexic on me," she adds, and I laugh for a moment before I realize she's kind of serious.

"Look, I've been living off cup noodles and black coffee at my desk for the past month, of course I'm looking a little haggard. But I've got some time off, I'll get my health back. Believe me, if I were developing an eating disorder, you would be the first to know, Kairi."

This seems to calm her a little, and I eat a couple of chips out of the bowl on the table for good measure.

"See?" I say, chewing loudly. "I eat. I just don't drink. Or, I mean, it's not so much that I don't drink, but that I haven't _been_ drinking. It's not- I mean- never mind."

Before she can get back into it, I attempt a subject change. Unfortunately, the first thing that catches my eye to talk about is her bracelet. It's thin and silver and there's a little heart charm on it.

"I like the bracelet," I say, through my mouthful of chips, and her face breaks into a smile as she looks down at it.

"Oh my God, I know, I love it too! But now I feel bad, because I didn't get him anything. I mean, I didn't want to make a big deal out of one month unless _he_ wanted to make a big deal, and then last night, we're in bed and it's midnight, and he reaches across me and pulls this _box_ out of the drawer!"

"A total surprise, then?"

She nods. "Totally. He was so sweet, he pulls it out and I was like 'What?', and then he puts it on my wrist and he goes 'Happy one month, babe' and kisses me on the cheek and goes back to sleep! It was the sweetest thing ever!"

I eat another chip in an attempt to avoid having to say anything. What I've learned about women over time is that if you don't say anything, they'll just keep talking.

"Seriously," she says, like clockwork. "I just- I _really_ like him, Riku. I mean, I can see this really… going somewhere."

The chip gets caught in my throat and my coughing interrupts our conversation for about a minute. Kairi offers to do the Heimlich, but I wave her off and get a drink of water.

"You ok?"

I cough one last time, then take a deep breath. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm sorry, you were saying, um, you really like him."

She smiles. "Yeah. I really do. He's… he's different, you know? He's completely unlike anybody else I've ever met."

I nod. "Yeah."

"And," she says mischievously, "He's _amazing_ in bed."

"Hmm," I say, and I take world's longest sip of water instead of actually responding. Unfortunately, Kairi's just shy enough to _not_ talk about sex without explicit permission from whoever she's talking to, so after emptying my glass of water, I'm forced to speak.

"Go on," I say half-heartedly, refilling my glass.

"Well, and stop me if this is like, way TMI, but like, he actually gets me off, you know? And most guys don't," she says, checking my reaction. I carefully maintain my poker face, thinking idly that drinking all this water has got to be good for my skin. The thing is, as shy as Kairi can be, once she gets going, she has no qualms about telling me every detail of any given sexual encounter. It goes both ways, too – whenever I'm actually getting any, she always wants to know, and she wants to know _details_. I have never minded this in the past, but right now I'm trying everything I can _not_ to think about the night I had with Sora, and thinking about Sora and sex at the same time is not the way to do so.

"Like, he really knows what he's doing," she continues. "And he's not into anything weird. I mean, you know me, what I consider to be fantastic sex is what most people consider to be boring sex. But what can I say? I love just feeling him on top of me, you know? It's just… sexy. Actually no, I lied, he does do one kind of kinky thing. He bites. I mean, not in a creepy way, he doesn't like, break the skin or anything. It's actually really hot. And it's not really kinky, now that I think about it. It's more like… cute. But you know, even if he _were_ like 90% of men and even if he _didn't_ know how to get a woman off, it would still be, I mean, it would still be… I feel like half the time the best part is just, um, I mean, just having him inside me, you know?"

_Yeah_, I want to say, _I know._

Then the door opens, and Sora's back. There's a feeling building up behind a blockade I've put up in the back of my mind, and I ignore it as long as I can, making jokes instead as I set out plates on the table.

Then I'm using the spatula to cut out a square of lasagna, and Sora's standing right beside me, looking over my shoulder. Kairi's got her head in the fridge, trying to make a space for the beer, and I feel like the world is moving in slow-motion. Sora sighs, and I feel his breath on my shoulder. Then I'm turning my head, and Sora catches my eye for just a moment, and I feel like everything's underwater – muffled and slowed down to a crawl. I hear him ask me something, far away, and I watch his lips and his tongue moving just inches from my face. I'm mesmerized, and I feel whatever's building up in my mind coming to a head.

Then he puts his hand on my shoulder and points to the lasagna, and reality rushes back all around me. I feel everything at once. The wall I tried to put up before I came over has been completely obliterated and though I can't identify what it is I want to have happen, what it is I'm really feeling for Sora, I'm feeling it, and I'm feeling it bad.

I shake it off and laugh at the joke he's making about the food, and then Kairi's talking, setting drinks out on the table, and Sora's hand is still resting on my shoulder, a friendly sort of gesture, I assume.

Kairi takes the last plate to the table and tells us to come sit down. She's putting music on. Before I can move, I feel Sora's hand tighten almost imperceptibly on my shoulder.

"Hey," he says softly, and when I look up at him, I know I must look just as terrified as I feel. I try to identify everything I see in his eyes when he looks back at me, and I file away kindness and concern, understanding and what almost looks like frustration before I reach something I really can't read. Then he lets out a small, defeated sort of laugh, and he looks at me with this grin like I'm something he's trying to figure out before finally letting go of my shoulder and turning to head to the table.

---

In March, Zexion comes home for a weekend and Sora inherits a car.


End file.
